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PHILOSOPHY 


OF 


ANIMATED EXISTENCE; 


OR, 


SKETCHES OF LIVING PHYSICS: 


WITH 


DISCUSSIONS OF PHYSIOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL. 


TO WHICH IS ADDED A BRIEF 

MEDICAL ACCOUNT 

OF THE 

MIDDLE REGIONS 

OF 

GEORGIA. 


y; BY 

JOHN B. GORMAN, M.D. 

'I ■< 


PHILADELPHIA: 

SORIN & BALL, 311 MARKET STREET. 

1845 . 


/ 






I 


■ Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 
JOHN B. GORMAN, M.D., 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 


T. K. & P. G Collins, Printers. 



A p 3 S' 


<« 



TO 

THOMAS B. GORMAN, M.D., 

OF MACON, 

MY BROTHER; 

COMPANION AND FELLOW-STUDENT OF MY EARLY YEARS; 

MY BEST AND CONSTANT FRIEND THROUGH LIFE; 

ON ACCOUNT OF HIS LOVE AND CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY, ELEGANT 
LETTERS AND THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE; 

AND IN TESTIMONY 

OF THE RESPECT AND FRATERNAL AFFECTION I BEAR HIM; 

THIS WORK, 

IN WHICH HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED, ON THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS 
TREATED, TO BRING THE IDEAS UP TO THE STATE OF 
LIVING KNOWLEDGE, IS INSCRIBED BY 


THE AUTHOR 


































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PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 


The slightest observation evinces the provisions of exis¬ 
tence in any living being are only partially contained in 
itself. 1. All such beings depend upon parents or existences 
similar to themselves, from which they take origin. 2. The 
materials of their structures are momentarily derived from 
the soil or media, in which it is proper for them to exist. 3. 
Their composing organs chiefly are only special contrivances 
formed in relation to this soil or these media, upon the dy¬ 
namical properties of which or laws of motion, the play of 
most all their functions are directly predicated—functions 
in themselves, which are only the immediate reciprocal re¬ 
actions of these organs upon these media. 4. The part of 
their organs not formed to play in the stimulations of the 
inhabiting media, relate to other forms of matter of the dy¬ 
namical system, as heat, light, which stimulate their functions; 
or to some property of this system, whose activity they 
modify, restrain, as the valves of the large ascending veins 
in man and some other animals restrain the universal weight 
or gravitation. 5. Considered, consequently, in their pure 
organic and mechanical relations, they are merely special 
parts of the soil and media, where they exist, or of their own 
and other worlds; but in the special forces by which they 
react for functions, and affect the movements of the general 
laws of matter, they are separate and distinct. 

The philosophy of animated existences, therefore, however 
restricted, is only a particular branch of general physics 
existing in close union, upon the profound study of which 
all the enlightened knowledge of this philosophy essentially 
depends. I study the bearings of general physics on the 

l* 


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VI 


PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 


subject I treat. My plan, therefore, carried out would form 
an encyclopedia of science. Consequently, I write sketches, 
in which I present what appears most important to be con¬ 
sidered. 

That the science of organic beings is only a particular 
part of the universal science of nature—that all science, 
knowledge, in a word, is but one ; and that all the distinc¬ 
tions philosophers make, are more or less arbitrary, but use¬ 
ful and necessitated for convenience, is thus evidenced. To 
meditated observation the system of the world presents but 
three great classes or orders of phenomena,* which are the 
material , the vital and the intellectual , and relate to three 
great, original dynamical forces. As the causes of these 
phenomena the mind infers these forces or beings , which are 
matter , life and intelligence . These phenomena With the 
causes, forces or beings, whence they emanate, and to which 
the mind refers them, constitute this entire system, or all 
the perceptible objects of nature. 

Pure science only relates or is concerned with phenomena, 
or what is manifest; and, since these form three distinct 
orders, correspondingly there are three distinct sorts of 
science, which may be named from the causes of the phe¬ 
nomena hylography, zoonomy and psychology. These form 
the first and most simple division of which science admits. 

But reflected observation further shows, that although 
these causes, beings, are distinct from one another, they are 
not independent in action, but united in their dynamical 
arrangement, which constitutes them reciprocal in effort, 
and, consequently, one in their phenomena. This unity of 
phenomena arising from the great reciprocal action of the 
triple, dynamical forces of the world, as I may call them, 
obliterates the threefold distinction of science, and makes it 
but one. 

I repeat, I contemplate organic beings, in my way, in re¬ 
lation to hylography, zoonomy, and psychology—to the 

* From fyaivo/xcn I appear—what is manifest to our senses. We have no 
word as cryptomena to express what is opposite to phenomena, or con¬ 
cealed from our senses. 


PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 


VU 


great triple action, or general physics. In the order of 
research, 1. I remount to the first being, and appreciate his 
logical idea. He is the first in the perceptible series of 
causes, of which the phenomena of nature are the manifesta¬ 
tions of activity. He originally impressed, and constantly 
vivifies the action of this series extending out from Himself, 
which makes all activities primarily depend upon Him. 
This series with himself, or He and the laws of nature not 
experimental, form the inexplorable domains of science, are 
the cryptomena. 

2. I study matter, the first material, the most ancient 
means of complicated, organic life. The motions of matter 
in space are double, and reciprocally dependent. The one¬ 
ness which its system implies, with this sort of motion, im¬ 
presses upon us the idea of life. This is the first or elder 
life, so much exaggerated by antiquity. Upon this life, as 
just intimated, is most manifestly predicated the life by a 
chemifying force or the life organic.—Hylozoick contempla¬ 
tions—Life is a common property; nature is the scene of 
universal animation. All the forms of existence, through 
the action of the secondary laws, enjoy vitality in a living 
Creator. 

3. Life by organization. This life is a special and original 
force of nature, and indestructible. Organization is the 
manner of existence, and manifestations. Only a portion of 
the aqueo-terrestrial mass appears to be subjected to its 
empire. I consider it in relation to the chemical forces, to 
the universal weight, to its own economy in the series of its 
forms, and in the fluctuations of ages. 

If the force which impels matter in space, and that which 
governs in its morphologic revolutions, be double, the action 
of the chemifying force of animal and vegetable vitality, is 
likewise double; so that nature animates with the same 
mode of motion all her mineral and organic existences. 

And 4. Mind. Like organic life, mind is a force of ori¬ 
ginal creation. In its activity it is subordinate to the mole¬ 
cular movement of organic formation; and is modified in 
all the living forms. I sketch it in its various relations. 


vm 


PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 


I avow it.—I have composed this work for the young 
philosophers of my country—for those, who are leaving the 
university, and forming opinions upon general topics of 
science and philosophy—and for all who take delight in 
free physical research. Those, who have a passion for 
minute anatomical description, and formal routine discus¬ 
sion, will be disappointed; but those who love to contem¬ 
plate freely man and other beings like him out on the great 
field of nature, responding by their special laws to the gene¬ 
ral laws of the universe, displaying the phenomena of their 
existence, accomplishing its end, and passing away in the 
courses of their world or the torrent of ages, if nothing new 
be found, it is hoped from blamable faultiness, will not be 
altogether deprived of participating with me the pleasure of 
these high contemplations. « 

If this little performance, but far too humble compared 
with my w T ishes of what it should be, in the feeblest degree, 
should stimulate to the forward motion of the science of my 
dear country, the end of all my study , the reward were too 
rich for the deservings of my labor. But if the reflections 
here, should lead any to a more protracted and profound 
study of the different branches of knowledge, which shed 
their light on the healing art, and awaken in any an inte¬ 
rest and taste for general physics on which I have touched, 
my gratification will be complete. 

In the eyes of some, the title of this work may appear 
ambitious, but it is not always so easy, as Disraeli (Curi¬ 
osities of Literature) has correctly enough said, to fix upon 
a title. This is more especially the case, where the plan 
of the performance like this, necessitates the rapid, I may 
say, instantaneous investigation of so many different sub¬ 
jects, by which it is constituted. I can only say, no effort 
has been spared to make the body of the work harmonize 
with the title prefixed. 

I may observe here, in consequence of many works pass¬ 
ing rapidly through so many editions, I have not always 
pointed out the page of authors, to whom I simply refer in 

descantation. 


PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION. 


IX 


The medical account of Georgia, which is added to the 
work, is so small, that it cannot be in the way of the general 
reader. 

As respects style, which, according to Count Buffon, 

“ makes the man,” I have only aimed at clearness, and the 
rapidity of expression of thought. If any inequalities, in 
this respect, should appear, they must have arisen from 
my having to study much almost at the same moment in 
different languages in reviewing the materials collected for 
my work. And, after all my care and labor to be correct, 

I am but too conscious of the many imperfections it con¬ 
tains—imperfections, too, many of which were unavoidable 
from the difficult nature of the subjects treated—Nor do I 
know how the ideas this book contains may appear in the 
eyes of other mortals, who will judge me. It is, therefore, ' 
I confess, not without a sense of fear, and the anxiety which 
is natural, that it is offered to the world. 

i 

Rocky Height, Talbot, Georgia. 

November 25, 1844. 
























































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CONTENTS 


BOOK I. 

Varieties of beings—their relations to one another. - 

All the phenomena of visible nature arise from the action of three great 
original, dynamical forces. ------- 

CHAPTER I. 

General phenomena of animated existence. - 

SECTION I. 

Is there occasionally new living species 1 —spontaneous generation. 

SECTION II. 

Phenomena of individual life. ------ 

CHAPTER II. 

The Original Being—God—Divine Creator. - 

Terribleness of him. - - - 

His idea—how caused. ------- 

Character of the gods of antiquity. ------ 

SECTION I. 

Efforts and limits of reason in his research. - 

Conclusions of reason on his idea. - - - - - 

SECTION II. 

Revelation, the source of all true theognosy. - 

Idea of one Supreme Being known to all enlightened nations of antiquity. 

How these nations obtained this idea. - 

CHAPTER III. 

The material system—nascent life. - 

SECTION I. 

Origin, history. -------- 

Progress of Science in discovery. ------ 

SECTION II. 

History of the earth. - 

Idea of an animal. - -- -- -- - 

The manner in which the structures of plants and animals make known the 
progressive changes of the world. ------ 



• • 


CONTENTS. 


Xll 


SECTION III. 

Origin and progress of life. 

Order in which it came forth. 


66 

68 


CHAPTER IV. 

The vital economy. -..-----70 

SECTION I. 

Idea— theory—of life. -------71 

Laws of the plastic, dynamical force, shape the living organs in relation to 
the external supporters. ------- 72 

SECTION II. 

Progressive perfection of life in the living series. - - - - 74 

The perfection of animated beings is in the direct ratio of the means they 
possess of reacting upon, and of modifying the universal forces of matter. 75 

Idea of the growing perfection of life in the animated series. - - 76 

SECTION III. 


Vastness of the economy—discrepancy, reciprocal relation of all the parts 
composing any animated being. ------ 79 

Variation of the organic types in different creatures, and their metamor¬ 
phoses from the embryon to perfect development. - - - - 80 

SECTION IV. 

Reciprocal dependence of all the parts of the economy—relations of the or- 
ganifiable matter—its first combinations into the living forms. - - 82 

Nature of the organifiable elements. - - - - .34 

The origin of the first series of all the living, organic forms, could not have 
been due to the plastic, physical attraction of life, and was Divine. - - 87 

CHAPTER V. 


Organization and life. ------- 88 

The vital force. -------- 89 

- - , * 

SECTION I. 

Examination of the physico-chemical theory of life. - - - 91 

The nervous fluid in its mode of action, analogous to that of electro-magnet¬ 
ism. .92 

Views of different philosophers. ------ 94 

Theory of the German Transcendentalists, very obscure. - - - 95 

SECTION II. 

The fabricating force in all animated existence original, distinct. - - 100 


SECTION III. 

Vastness of the action of the living force—Law of eccentric formation. 

SECTION IV. 

Address of the living artisan force. - 


105 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


SECTION V. 

Opinions of the ancients on the first cause of life. - 109 

SECTION VI. 

Necessity in the actual state of the sciences, of a new and more enlarged 
philosophical nomenclature, for the classification of the vital force with the 
other active agents of nature. - - - - - - -112 

Reasons for this classification. - - - - - -115 

CHAPTER VI. 

Organic, material subordination or physical conditions and mind. - 

SECTION I. 

The last terms to which we can reduce the idea of the understanding 
culty of the subject—psychogeny. - 

CHAPTER VII. 

Intellectual mechanics,—or manner of action of the various dynamical 
forces of different classes of perceptions, ideas. - - - - 124 

SECTION I. 

History—motion of a perception of the first dynamical order. - - 125 

SECTION II. 

Second dynamical order. ------- 128 

Example 1 . - -- -- -- - 129 

Example 2. — Mechanism of the sentiment of conservative love. - - 131 

Example 3. — The object is an amiable female in distress. - 133 

Final causes of these movements. ------ 137 

Example 4.—Hector dragging at the war-chariot of Achilles—Andromache, 
the beholder. - -- -- -- -- 139 

Example 5. — Leander drowning — Hero. ----- 141 

Reflections. -------- - 142 

Example 6 . - -- -- -- - 144 


- 116 

—diffi- 

- 120 


BOOK II. 

Beings—their relations to the double extension of time and space. - 148 

CHAPTER I. 

The historical Creator, or an active Divine Providence. - - - 148 

The obscurity of such a Providence has produced scepticism. - - 1G0 


B 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


What is the philosophy of a Divine Providence? and why have men mista¬ 
ken, misunderstood its course ? ------ 

Philosophy of a Divine Providence. - 

In what consists the action on the world of the original Artisan Force, 
which we call Providence ?------- 

Prayer—miracles. -------- 

Moral evil. -------- 


161 

164 

165 
168 
169 


CHAPTER II. 

Matter in its relations to time and space. - - - - -171 

SECTION I. 

Relations to time—All bodies molecular—molecular activity. - - 171 

Article 1 .—Dissuasives from such study, utility. - 172 

Article 2 .—Progressive knowledge—perplexity—uncertainty. - - 174 

Article 3. —Improvements by the modern philosophers—prospects of 
chemical science. - - - - - - - -176 

Article 4.—Utility of atoms in the theory of matter—their energy—phe¬ 
nomena of their first action. , - - - - - - 180 

Article 5.—Impotency of analysis and synthesis—Speculations on the 
natural history of atoms—their general adoption. - 182 

Article 6 .—Atoms limited in their mode of productiveness—their innate, 
exhaustless, susceptibility of new material existence. - - - 186 

Article 7.—Place of atoms in nature—their logical order. - 188 

/ 

SECTION II. 

Relations to space. - - - - - - - -189 

x\rticle 1.—Porosity—probable smallness of the real amount of matter in 
space—hypothesis of the motion of atoms in curved lines. - 189 

Article 2 .—Beauty—grandeur of matter in space—immensity of its action 
—disproportion of our senses. - 193 

Article 3. —Operation or functional forces of bodies. ... 197 

Reflections. --------- 201 


CHAPTER III. 

Proportions of man with nature—hypothesis of the co-extensiveness of or¬ 
ganization and life with matter. - - - - - -205 

Life universal. -------- 207 

CHAPTER IV. 


Philosophy—Nature of animated beings. 


217 


CONTENTS 


XY 


SECTION I. 

Analysis to the living functions—fundamental principles of physiology. 220 


CHAPTER V. 

Life or vital motion considered in relation to time, or the movement of the 


world. --------- 229 

SECTION I. 

Vital evolution. - 230 

SECTION II. 

Death. --------- 238 

/ 

Causes of death. - -- -- -- - 245 

SECTION III. 

Perpetuation by Generation. ------ 249 


CHAPTER VI. 

Geographical life or life in relation to habitation. - - - - 256 


CHAPTER VII. 

Living mechanics. ------- 267 

SECTION I. 

Synopsis of the views of antiquity on the cause of living motion. - 270 

©Eibv - - - -- -- -- 274 

©E^iuuv. - - - -- -- -- 275 

Numbers. - - - -- -- -- 276 

Homeomeries. - - -- -- -- 277 


SECTION II. 

General Idea of Movements. 

SECTION III. 

Appreciation of the stimuli or incitants 

SECTION IV. 

- i i 

Freedom of the will. - 

SECTION V. 

Relation of the osseo-muscular levers to the inciting powers. - - 296 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Oscillations, revolutions of the great force of life in progressive epochs. - 298 

SECTION I. 

\ 

Antiquity of the living species—impediments to research. - - 298 


280 

281 

-► 295 


XVI 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION II. 

Estimate—variation of the number of the human species. - - 302 


SECTION III. 

Causes which modify the intensity of the great action of life. - - 305 

1. Running waters. ------- 306 

2. Earthquakes. - -- -- -- - 310 

3. Volcanic ruptures. - - - - - - - 310 

4. Too great development of life in one part of the living series, &c. - 314 

5. Human agency. - ------ 315 

6. Insect life. -------- 315 

7. Other causes. - - - - - - ' 316 

8. The sun. - - - - - - - - 317 

9. General reflections. - - - - - - - 317 

I 

SECTION IV. 


Hypothesis of the revivescence and indefinite duration of the organic plas¬ 
tic nature in us. - - - - - - - - 322 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mind..326 

SECTION I. 

Mind, inconscious of the vital acts, its impelling forces, and distinct. - 327 

SECTION II. 

Wisdom of the mind is in itself, and different from the wisdom manifested 
by all the other existences of nature. - .... 329 


CHAPTER X. 

N . 

Mechanism of mental activity. ------ 332 

SECTION I. 

Action of external bodies an element in perception and causation of the in¬ 


tellectual phenomena. ------- 336 

Article 1 . —Manner in which the action is applied. - 337 

Article 2.—Living parts on which the action is exercised. - - 339 

Article 3.—Quality of the action. - - - - - 341 

SECTION II. 


Action of the living organism in perception and causation of the intellect¬ 


ual phenomena. - - ------ 344 

Article 1 . —Sensitive organs or the senses, and their action. - - 344 

1. Internal senses. ------- 345 

2. Pathological senses. ------- 347 

3. External senses. ------- 343 



CONTENTS. 


XVII 


Article 2 .—Action of the intermediate nerves which transmit the impres¬ 
sions to the brain. - 358 

Article 3 .—Action of the brain, which, in common language, constitutes 
impressions, perceptions. - - - - - . - 361 


CHAPTER XI. 

Rapid history of the understanding. ..... 366 

SECTION I. 

Natural history of the mind. ...... 366 

Its distribution throughout the living series. .... 372 

SECTION II. 

Civil history of the mind. ....... 373 

Properties or faculties. ....... 377 

CHAPTER XII. 

Intellectual operations—faculties. ..... 37$ 


FIRST CLASS-INTELLECTUAL. 

SECTION I. 


Sensation—perception. ....... 379 

SECTION II. 

External perceptions. - - - - - - -381 

Elements of the theory of our knowledge and belief of an external world. 389 

SECTION III. 

External perceptions of particular organs, sight, touch, &c. - - 393 

SECTION IV. 

Perception of the internal senses. ------ 398 

SECTION V. 

Pathological sensations. - 403 

Article 1.—In Somnambulism. ...... 404 

Article 2 .—In Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism. - - - 407 

Article 3.—In chronic encephalitis. - - - - - 411 

Article 4.—In apparitions. ...... 412 

Reflection 1.—On the mental phenomena of somnambulism. - - 413 

Polar vision in animals, a part in their conservative economy, and consti¬ 
tutes much of what is called their instincts. - - - - - 419 

Reflection 2 .—On ghosts or apparitions—phantasmogeny. - - 427 

SECTION VI. 

Conclusion upon this chapter on the sensations. .... 430 



XV111 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION VII. 

Reason. ------- 

Article 1.—Influence of local causes on reason. - 
Article 2. —Manner of its productiveness. 

Article 3.—Influence of physical causes bearing on the future. 
Article 4. — Modifying influence of moral causes. 

Article 5.—Physiology of reasoning. ... 
Article 6.— Distribution of reason throughout the living scale. 


Imagination. 


SECTION VIII. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The Passions. 


SECOND ORDER. 


SECTION I. 

Character, end and use of the passions. 



SECTION II. 

Physiology of the passions. - 

SECTION III. 

Passion of theosophy—cultis numenis—or religion. 
Article 1 . —Philosophy of religion. - 

Article 2.— Religion civil, or in relation to the species. - 
Reflections.—On civil religion, and conclusion of this work. 


434 

438 

438 

441 

444 

445 
447 

449 


454 

457 

461 

469 

470 
476 
489 


A BRIEF MEDICAL ACCOUNT OF THE MIDDLE 


REGIONS OF GEORGIA. 

Medical account. - 497 

CHAPTER I. 

Topographical Milledgeville and the middle regions of Georgia. - - 497 

SECTION I. 

Tradition and history of the settlement of Milledgeville. - 497 

SECTION II. 

Physical geography. - 499 



CONTENTS. 


XIX 


Article 1.—Natural history. - - - - - 500 

\ * ' 4 

Article 2.—geology. - 504- 

SECTION III. 

Modifying influence of the three divisions of the state on disease, or geo¬ 


graphical nosogeny. ........ 509 

SECTION IV. 

Medical geography of the middle regions at the period of 1818. - 511 

SECTION V. 

State of society. - 516 

CHAPTER II. 

Medical history—particular modes of practice—practitioners. - - 518 

Medical Education. - - - « , » - - 519 

r' ' ' . ‘ • i / • 

CHAPTER III. 

General outline—character of disease. - - - - 521 

t 

CHAPTER IV. 


Sickness of the year 1818. - 527 

SECTION I. 

- ^ 

The seasons. -------- 527 

» 

SECTION II. 

Bilious fever of June and July. ------ 529 

SECTION III. 

Fever of August and September. ------ 532 

SECTION IV. 

Synopsis of. the treatment. ------- 535 

Article 1.—Bilious vomiting and purging. - 535 

Article 2.—Spasmodic bilious colic. - 536 

Article 3.—Fever. ....... 538 

Observations. -------- 542 

CHAPTER V. 

Progress of disease fom 1818 to 1826. ----- 544 

SECTION I. 

Bilious fever of 1819. - 544 

SECTION II. 

Bilious fever of 1820. - - 544 


/ 


I 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


SECTION III. 

Bilious fever of 1821-2. ------ 

1 . Contagiousness. ------- 

2 . Character—symptoms. ------ 

3. Practice—treatment—history of. - 

4. General observations. ------ 

SECTION IV. 

Progress of disease from the year 1822 to 1826.—Synoptical view. 


545 

547 

547 

551 

560 


561 


CHAPTER VI. 

Summary observations, medical literature, and conclusion - - 563 

Prospects of medical science in Georgia. = - - - - 570 


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* 


PHILOSOPHY, ETC. 


BOOK I. 

VARIETY OF BEINGS—THEIR RELATIONS WITH ONE ANOTHER. 

An original Creator—God—is nature’s fundamental 
idea. The active reason of men of all ages, countries, 
whether they have cultivated sciences, and become civil¬ 
ized, or persevered in barbarism, has alike reached the 
conception, or substituted something in the place of this 
great idea; beyond which contemplation cannot pass. 
The order in which the phenomena of all physical exist¬ 
ences, are presented to us; the manner in which our 
minds appear framed to study these phenomena, lead us 
up in antiquity, step by step, to behold this Idolum na- 
turce magnum . 

The God of reason as of inspiration, is the first Being, 
alone original. There must have been a period, when 
He existed in solitude. All others have sprung from 
the Divine Wisdom and industry. Excepting our ma¬ 
terial economy, we know not in what ages or durations 
they came forth. In space rich,—beautiful for its worlds 
— we see the immensity of matter. The more our 
knowledge improves, the more we become convinced of 
the feebleness, inadequacy of our idea of the actual ex¬ 
tent and limits. From the influences of these worlds 
upon our senses and on our system, we simply know they 
2 



18 


VARIETY OF BEINGS. 


are material; but know not the variety of other beings 
they may contain. 

The matter of our own sphere exists constantly in two 
states, of which it appears only to be susceptible; the 
mineral and the organic. The mineral is the state, in 
which the properties inherent, inseparable from it, place 
and maintain it in nature. This sphere constituting not 
a whole in itself, these properties combine to achieve its 
cosmic functions or relations in the economy of which it 
is a constituent part. 

The organic state, foreign to the achievement of all 
the congenite properties, is due to a separate force. This 
substantive force manifests itself to be distinct from the 
material properties, by the successful opposition it offers 
to them, and by the decided difference which exists be¬ 
tween mineral and living bodies. 

Intelligence is another force not less distinct and sub¬ 
stantive. Its development and entire activity, are subor¬ 
dinate to the molicular, vital movement. 

Three classes, then, of forces— beings; — or matter , 
life and intelligence , with their phenomena constitute 
nature with us. 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


19 


CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL PHENOMENA OF ANIMATED EXISTENCE. 

All created beings continue to be what they are— 
exist—by virtue of the acts, they constantly put forth. 
These acts distributed out, impressed at the hour of 
creation, are special to each. Thus a star, a man, a mi¬ 
croscopic animalcule;—the towering cedar, the humble 
cryptogame—are subjected to the same condition. There 
are no royal houses in nature, where beings repose, or 
enjoy repose after labour. They all participate in the 
ceaseless struggle; persevere in continual excitement. 
This excitement is the essence of their being. In it 
they all, in their own way, enjoy life from the hands of 
their living Creator; live the great, the beautiful life of 
nature. 

But it is not the phenomena of this universal life, only 
an infinitely small portion, and a particular mode of it, 
we are here to contemplate. In this particular mode, 
we find the rank and place, we with our fellows, occupy. 
We live amid the scene of the mineral changes and re¬ 
volutions of the matter of our planet. We cannot but 
perceive our existence is connected closely with the 
causes of these changes. The slightest observation of 
the general phenomena of matter, very moderate inspec¬ 
tion of the physical laws, are sufficient to convince us, the 
star in space, on which we dwell does not contain all, 
but only a limited portion of the conditions or means 
absolutely necessary to our existence. Its intercourse, 
associations with its fellow-stars;—the life it enjoys itself 
—completes these means. 

Our sort of animation parasitic, is, therefore, only a 
special form engrafted on the older life of nature. It is 



20 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


the modification of this life by a substantive force, the 
force of organization. This life by giving matter forms 
foreign to the natural tendencies; endowing them with 
separate and special properties; combining them into 
reciprocally active wholes;—or this life by organization, 
differs exactly from the great, parent model. The force 
of the one progresses without exhaustion in eternal equi¬ 
librium ; that of the other is never exactly the same in 
intensity and operation. Against this latter force, frail 
and delicate, the matter subjected to its dominion forever 
tends to rebel and escape. Commencing feeble at first, 
it has its limits fixed in all living species, beyond which 
it cannot pass. Thus generation and death come to 
form part in its economy. 

One of the most notable conditions, therefore, in all 
animated existences, is, to use the sacred expression, 
that they come from the dust and return. In this double 
movement, all vitality keeps pace w T ith the flight of the 
celestial spheres,—plays through time. In this flight are 
maintained the eternal youth and beauty of the living 
forms, personified by antiquity in the person of Hebe, 
daughter of the most ancient of beings. 

Nature seems to manifest no cares for the preservation 
of her fair creations of life. She constantly prepares for 
us, frightful, hated deaths. She flatters with beauty 
and strength, but she will not hear our cries, entreaties; 
does not pity the hideous features, the wrinkled face, 
the stiffened form, she is preparing for us ;—the solitude 
of the cold sepulchre. She procures death for all; to 
us the most frightful, because formed the most sensible. 

Her great pleasure, her constant disposition, is, to 
return, and tread again in her own footsteps; create 
existence, rekindle the breath after the same models, 
she has destroyed. In the successive evolution and ex¬ 
tinction of generations, she limits herself to the repetition 
of the same, unvarying series of efforts; passes round in 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SFECIES. 


21 


the eternal circle of action. And the voice of her august 
Creator, rings forever throughout her living empire, 
“From the dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt re¬ 
turn.” 

But what is this dust? mighty, immovable base of 
all animated beings, round whose great axis, they all turn! 
This dust?—but the earth herself; over whose sterile face 
passed anciently the breath of the Almighty. Then the 
grass first shot up its juicy spires; the little flowers 
opened their tender petals to catch the roscid drops; and 
the tall trees spread out their voluminous foliage beneath 
the clouds;—the plumy races began to flutter in the air; 
the young leviathan, play in the waves;—the great zoo¬ 
logical life came forth:—and man appeared among them 
their crowned sovereign. 

The dust, then, which we bring with us into life, 
which we sacredly deposit in the tomb afterwards, en¬ 
joyed, at first, only the simple life, the life of all matter. 
But since generations began in all the living races, the 
dust of the earth has lived a new life from the Divine 
Breath or the organizing nature, which has continued. 


SECTION I. 

IS THERE OCCASIONALLY NEW LIVING SPECIES?-SPONTANEOUS 

GENERATION. 

Like Newton’s astronomical world, which, by its own 
operations tends to destruction; and requires at periodi¬ 
cal times, the correcting touch of the creating hand, does 
the world of life operate its own ruin?—do the old races 
expire of age or accident, and are new ones occasionally 
created to keep it up ? 

Man climbing aloft in the regions of the sciences, be¬ 
holding the reciprocal unity, general subordination; the 
inflexible laws, which bind all in the great republic of 

2 * 


22 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


the universe, his mind is struck with a vertiginous move¬ 
ment. The immensity of Nature’s operations, the fright¬ 
ful durations, through which her unwearied action con¬ 
tinues on, overpower all his contemplation. But his 
ambition can never be overpowered. In these sciences 
he struggles continually with nature. He desires to be 
present with her, and witness all her doings. He looks 
on his mind as forming the visible horizon of the invisi¬ 
ble universe. He forgets that very few of these opera¬ 
tions are subjected to his observation; that he witnesses 
these few but very imperfectly;—he forgets the feeble¬ 
ness, nothingness of his own thought; and attempts to 
retrace the great ages of the world. 

Imbedded deep in the strata of the earth, and amid 
solid rocks, he beholds the remains of the Edentata , the 
gigantic Pachydermata , the Saaria , Ophidia. —At vari¬ 
ous depths beneath the surface, on the greatest elevations 
above the seas, the fossil relics of Neptunian life, are 
presented to his observation. Nay, so abundant are these 
relics, that they appear to constitute largely the solid 
crust of our planet, and give to it much of its present 
form, and appearance. 

Many of the congeners of these relics do not exist now 
in any of the seas which are; and a goodly number of 
these Sauria , Ophidia , Pachydermata ,—that existed for¬ 
merly, is now found alive in no country on earth. All 
the monuments, therefore, show, the life of our world is 
of an extremely great age, stretches back into the annals 
of a dreary, incomprehensible antiquity :—That the races 
die , “ thin out” and new ones must occasionally be sup¬ 
plied by creation, accommodated to the new epochs of 
relabent time. Thus the great, living economy, coeval 
with our astronomical world, progresses through the dura¬ 
tion of time by the perpetual generation of the individu¬ 
als, death destroys; and by the occasional divine creation 
of new races, or “ transmutation of species These 


I 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SPECIES. 23 

conclusions vast in themselves occupy immense ground. 
They are the conclusions of MM. Buffon, Lamarck, 
Cuvier, and other great philosophers. But much gloom, 
heavy shades hang about them. The ground on which 
they rest can never be all explored. The facts of paleon¬ 
tology—zoological history,—appear to testify, that many 
of the old races have perished and disappeared, and that 
new ones have been introduced. 

But we may suppose, as yet, even the outline of the 
living economy, has been only very imperfectly explored. 
We know but partially the elements of which it is com¬ 
posed. Even in modern times, in the Marsupialia— 
Macropus minor, Didelphis gigantea ;— Monotremata 
—ornithorhynchus paradoxus , ornithor. setosus; New 
Holland has presented new descriptions of living crea¬ 
tures. On the floors of the seas and oceans, in the soli¬ 
tudes of central Africa, some parts of boreal Europe and 
Asia, the desert lands of the two Americas, in many of 
the Oceanica but little explored, there may exist many 
creatures, even of great size, unknown to all zoography. 

If then the zoological philosopher know not the amount 
of life in being, and the number of forms in which it 
exists, he must be illy prepared to decide upon the amount 
and the number of species, which have been miscarried 
by time, and struck from the living calendar. 

If new races, occasionally, are really created, since it 
is the work of an Infinite Being, is it we may be living 
in the infancy of the world, and are ignorant of the dura¬ 
tion, the original power of creation is consuming, in 
bringing the living empire to its ultimate and stationary 
perfection? Or is such perfection a part of primeval na¬ 
ture? May not these new creations be presented to our 
eyes, from our manner of studying this economy, as it 
is unfolded and brought forward in the great action of 
time? We shall notice these topics directly. 


24 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


But ourselves, apart, we know not the end or use of 
any living being, nor their proportion with themselves 
and the balance of the universe. We are ignorant of the 
great causes, which necessitated their existence. They 
are presented to us without their reasons,—philosophy. 
We behold them with ourselves dashing onward in the 
eternal torrent of ages. Nature advances perpetually in 
her steady course. She regards all time as one unbroken 
duration. We break time into epochs to define and cir¬ 
cumscribe her actions. Our reason progresses on her 
backward course; her phenomena are presented in the 
inverted order. She always combines in her action, but 
we decompose. We cannot see things in natu , as she 
brings them forth. We look at her through the epochs, 
we make. We take for the whole what she simply means 
for a part. We complete her designs, when she is only 
commencing them. We see but her broken, distorted 
image.— 

The Marquis De Laplace corrected the astronomical 
error of Newton. One day zoology may have her La¬ 
place, who will demonstrate, that the living races set up 
in the first order of creation, incomprehensible in the great 
mutation and transition of time, never perish;—that the 
world of life, like that of matter, perfect in its own preser¬ 
vation, may progress eternally without decay or diminu¬ 
tion, unless interdicted by the Divine will. 

Time always leaves behind it, an obscurity fearful to 
truth and science. It is in this obscurity, the zoological 
philosopher gropes, tracing the ancient history of life. 
The remains of the living structures inclosed in rocks 
and the terrestrial strata, are the venerable monuments, 
he consults. The rocks and beds on which all the others 
rest, he assumes to be the oldest; and judges of the age 
of the balance by their super-position. He compares the 
organic remains of the older with the more recent for- 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SPECIES. 


25 


mations; and discovers great and decided changes have 
taken place.* In the more ancient strata and fossilifer- 
ous rocks, he beholds only the relics or prints of ferns, 
reeds; the radiata , molusca ;—the first rude elements of 
a living world: in those more recent, the dicotyledonous 
tribes, the vertebratcr ,—the more perfect among plants 
and animals. Finally the system of life existing now in 
our planet, has completely changed in all its members; 
and corresponds no longer with the system or systems, 
which have been. 

There is life; the oldest forms of matter are marked 
with its unequivocal traces; life has always been. He 
compares, examines the monuments in all their bearings 
to discover where the path leads, in which nature has 
travelled. No age has ever witnessed the new creation 
of a living being. The existing organic forms must have 
descended from those of the primeval creation, through a 
continual and successive transmutation of species. 

But no philosopher can point to the intervening types 
of organization, which connect the existing species with 
those of the old fossiliferous rocks. This theory of trans¬ 
mutation, therefore, presents prodigious lacuna, which no 
reason or scientific industry can ever fill up.f 

* Vid. Cuvier’s Recherches sur les Ossemens de Quadrupedes. 

t In a recent work, G. Penn, Esq. has marshalled much learning and 
criticism, and elevated himself against MM. De Luc, Cuvier, all these 
great men, who have shed so much modern light on the history of the 
planet. He attacks in every part, the whole theory over which we are 
here passing. His brilliant arrows seem to fly at every point, except 
those at issue. Too theological, his reasoning must be judged inappli¬ 
cable. The fundamental truths of this theory, attested by our senses, 
must continue with the facts. 

Among other things, his book appears more a finished eulogium on 
the genius of Bacon and Newton, than an argument seriously about the 
Terra invisibelis et inccmposita; and the Magnx ossa parentis ,— 
mundi. Vid. Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical ge¬ 
ologies, passim. 


26 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


In the absence of the conditions necessary to the de¬ 
velopment of life, experience has proved it possible, nay 
probable, the seeds of plants and ova of animals, will 
continue through, great periods, the exact limits un¬ 
known; and still be evolutionable—prolific. Since, 
therefore, only the rudimental forms of life appear to 
have existed in the infancy of nature, in place of these 
mutations and successive creations, if we suppose the 
organizing nature or plastic vital principle , peculiar to 
each of the great vertebrated and other more perfect 
families, was intrusted to some of the durable forms of 
matter, as future life is to these seeds and ova; which 
would develop in the progressive changes of the world, 
and start into organic being with the succession of gene¬ 
rations; it would correspond better with sacred history, 
and accommodate all the immovable facts of geognostic 
zoology. 

Whether, however, by transmutations, more recent 
creations, or the amorphous ova , I have supposed for all 
the new species; the complete and successive alterations, 
themselves, debatable as other things connected with 
them may be, remain indisputable. 

Causes. —Changes from the great astronomical move¬ 
ment; revolutions on the face of the planet itself; slow 
molicular fluctuations, are alleged to be incompatible 
with a living economy permanent in its genera and spe¬ 
cies. The new conditions through which matter is 
passing in the great flights of time, it is asserted, tend 
to the extinction of the ancient forms of life, and neces¬ 
sitate others with constitutions adapted to these material 
vicissitudes. 

We cannot here discuss these prodigious topics. They 
will meet us again. We shall content ourselves with 
observing,—the inclination of the earth’s axis, which 
regulates, modifies the solar light and heat in all climates, 
has ever made a great figure in living archeology. From 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SPECIES. 


27 


calculations, some philosophers maintain, the terrestrial 
axis, in a long series of years, will regain its equilibrium 
in the Ecliptic, and again stand even in its plain.—That 
then, from the unchangeableness or uniformity of the 
temperature of all climates, in all seasons great alterations 
will be consummated throughout the living kingdom. 

The axes of the other planets do not correspond with 
the Ecliptic plane. Nay, the poles of some of them, are 
depressed much lower than ours, so that their axes stand 
nearly vertical or cut this plane at almost right angles. 

Why, then, should we suppose our Southern pole has 
ever been depressed by some accidental cause? Why 
not rather think, at the hour of creation, our planet was 
orbited with its axis inclined as our astronomy finds it.— 
And when we consider the rotundity of its figure,—that 
light can travel only in straight lines :—when we appre¬ 
ciate the immense consequences, which result from this 
position of its axis, we should think the more, this incli¬ 
nation was intentional, and a part in the original con¬ 
trivance. Indeed, all philosophy were infinitely easier, 
could man think and foresee like his Divine Creator. 

The exact periods, in which our astronomical matter, 
in its great flights through space, completes its revolu¬ 
tions, show the force by which it is animated, operates 
uniformly. The precise correspondence of the great 
cycles of time, measured out by these revolutions, evinces, 
that since astronomical observation and history com¬ 
menced, no permanent changes have occurred in our 
material economy:—that this economy maintains the 
equilibrium of its force, and if slight alterations do occur, 
they are only temporary, their causes being evanescent. 

We have, therefore, good grounds to conclude upon 
the high probability, that all the bodies subjected to the 
solar autocracy, have persevered through all time with 
great uniformity; and that any system of life, it would 
maintain at any one period, would be maintained ad in- 


28 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


defmitum . It is highly improbable, then, life has ever 
perished out and disappeared from astronomical causes. 

But what proof exists, that the matter of our planet 
•undergoes permanent changes, in the long flights of time, 
from the molicular movement, incompatible with the du¬ 
ration of the living specis? In the imponderable attrac¬ 
tions, it is armed with prodigiously energetic forces, pro¬ 
lific causes of changes. Everywhere exists the most 
indubitable testimony, its whole face has, more than once, 
been completely broken up, and undergone alteration. 
The facts and reasonings of Baron Cuvier* establish this 
position more clearly than any of his predecessors, and 
command respect and admiration for his genius. 

It is unphilosophical to think the revolutionary causes 
have become quiescent; or that our world is possessed of 
active forces at one time, which it loses at another. It 
is to be regarded as a definite, unvarying quantity, both 
in substance and in energy. The causes, therefore, which 
commenced the first changes of its surface in the highest 
antiquity, are still in operation; and the face we occupy 
now, can not continue to be the face, on which will dwell 
all the future generations of men. 

These revolutions of the terrestrial superfice, do not 
take place suddenly, and universally, at once. They 
commenced partially and demand great and unascer¬ 
tained limits of time for their consummation. And since 
they have been in progress from the infancy of the world, 
and their action has never intermitted, we must con¬ 
clude, the vital economy is constitutionally fitted to bear 
the vicissitudes their causes occasion; and all the loss of 
life, it has ever sustained, has been through mechanical 
violence, such as the sudden sinking of the earth, inunda¬ 
tions. 

In consequence of the diversity of its mechanical and 
chemical constitutions, or the universal conformation of 

* Revolutions of the Earth’s Surface and Geology. 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SPECIES. 


29 


organization and its properties, the earth is presented to 
the great living families, as so many regions, that limit 
the geographical spaces, they can occupy. If we were 
to suppose the whole of one of these regions, which De 
Candoll* properly calls “Foci of creation ,” containing 
every individual of any particular race, were destroyed 
at once by these causes of change; then we could easily 
conceive of the entire loss of genera and species. The 
fossil remains of this race, dug up at some distant future 
period, would correspond with none of the living families; 
and would properly be pronounced extinct. If, therefore, 
the doctrine of lost species, should continue to figure in 
the world, which it undoubtedly will, until species shall 
be differently defined and understood, it will likely be 
maintained upon this manner of destruction. 

But except the Noahic flood, the tradition, history of 
no people, human experience, has never witnessed the 
destruction of so much country at once. And to conceive 
such an event possible, would be to suppose these “ Foci 
of Creation ” in very early times, were contained in 
limits abundantly smaller, than they are known now to 
occupy. That such destruction may have taken place in 
great antiquity, is both possible and probable from the 
fact, that then the races on land, had not expanded to the 
full measure of their existence, and filled up these foci. 
In the evolutions of generations and multiplication of 
species, even amid the greatest abundance of the alimen- 
taria , we may suppose a considerable length of time 
must have been consumed, in reaching their utmost geo¬ 
graphical limits. And, if Mr. Whitehurst’sf theory of 
the insulary formation of the primitive, terrestrial super- 
fice, be true, these limits or these foci themselves, were 
much more contracted in the ancient, than in the modern 
annals. 

* Geog. des Plantes. 

t Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth. 


30 


VITAL PHENOMENA. 


If we examine the molicular attractions, by which the 
earth’s face is perpetually changed and renewed, like that 
of astronomy, we shall find them equable and uniform in 
their operations. They have continued through all periods 
the same. The same attractions, repulsions continue be¬ 
tween the same class of bases. The crystalline forms of 
all chemical bodies, they evolve at the present time, cor¬ 
respond exactly with those of the same descriptions of 
all former times. They have precisely the same consti¬ 
tutions, the same number of angles;—are the same geo¬ 
metrical figures. Thus matter, both in its astronomical 
and chemical constitutions, properties and relations, has 
descended through all durations unchanged; and the 
life, it was calculated to nourish at any one period, cceteris 
paribus, it would nourish at another. 

But still we may think, we know not matter, nor all 
the relations, which exist between it and life, as propel¬ 
ling cause and effect. Since the implantation of life in 
our planet, there are witnesses, that there has been a con¬ 
tinued progression. Examination of its paleontology, 
imperfect as are the means, and actual zoology, shows it 
has entirely changed all its forms; undergone new deve¬ 
lopments; and tends continually to new organic modifica¬ 
tions. These changes appear to constitute the steady 
course of nature. The material causes—habitudes— 
must, as we shall hereafter illustrate, have corresponded 
to these changes. We know not matter in the essence of 
its revolutionary powers. Could we compare the pro¬ 
gress of life and zoography of Venus, Jupiter,—with ours, 
new light might be evolved. But our means with our 
mental forces are limited. We can only see, judge and 
speak of things according to our little make—the diminu¬ 
tive boundaries absolutely prescribed to our sciences. 
We would see by the pure light of nature, make perpetual 
progress towards the Divinity, from whom we have come; 
and purge,—quit this light of the Camera Obscura , which 


DOCTRINE OF NEW SPECIES. 


31 


sheds so many rays on the temples of our knowledge. 
But we have our place assigned in the universe, are ad¬ 
vancing ; and, like other beings, must wait patiently for 
our revolution —for the eternal transmutation — metamor¬ 
phosis —of our nature. 

We conclude finally, if the old races die out from ma¬ 
terial changes, and are lost to their economy, they are lost 
alone through the mechanical action of matter, in the sub¬ 
version of their focal countries;—that they have achieved 
the end of their being in nature;—and if fresh ranks of 
life, by transmutation, creation or the amorphous ova 
suggested by us, are gradually and occasionally substi¬ 
tuted to fill their place, we cannot profound the immen¬ 
sity, end or use of creation. He is thrice happy,— 

—Qui protuit rerum cognosceve causas, 

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari! 

—Ilium non populi fasces, non purpura regum 
Flexit.— 

Spontaneous Generation. —Since all life at first was 
by divine creation and institution; and organization— 
the universal mode—is foreign to the achievement of the 
material properties; since, consequently, all life subse¬ 
quent to the first pairs, has been transmitted by parents, 
or in the words of the illustrious Harvey, “ Exovo omnia 
spontaneous or equivocal generation, is an idle question. 

Diodorus Siculus and other old writers, mention, that 
the ancient philosophers of Egypt, India,—maintained, 
all vitality sprung originally from heat and moisture. 
But these philosophers lived in the infancy of learning, 
when experience had only began to lisp the first, simple 
lessons from truth. Some sages still teach that animal- 
cular vitality is spontaneous. But all life with them, for 
the most part, is only the simple combination of forces, 
movements:—the evolution of some occult, material pro¬ 
perties. Their conception is extremely vague and indefi¬ 
nite. 


32 


PHENOMENA 


SECTION II. 

INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 

For all the living forms, generation is the starting, 
death, the terminating point. Their passage from the one 
to the other of these points, constitutes ages. The organi¬ 
zing force or special forces of life, if not interrupted by 
accidental causes, will conduct each through this mea¬ 
sured distance. But beyond they cannot progress; they 
will suspend their action. 

To our eyes there appears to be superfluous room in 
nature. We cannot tell by what inflexible necessity, 
this certain space is given, in which can only burn the 
precious, divine fire of life, which all beings love, when 
they have once tasted, but tasting are compelled to quit 
forever. Is to live the greatest privilege, the highest 
honor in nature ? Is it an 'approach to the Divinity, an 
imitation of him ? is it a gift too high, too valuable, to be 
trusted long with creatures of our terrestrial mould? 
And when we have once lived, do we, forever, remain 
nearer and occupy new relations with Him. To live for 
the meanest insect, for all, is to sip out of the cup which 
angels drink. Is the smallest portion the best for our 
being’s frame-work? and is death, so abundant, our bet¬ 
ter fortune ? We come from oblivion and return; and 
what we are, is cause for gratitude. Our planet without 
ours, without any of its lives, one vast and frightful soli¬ 
tude, would roll in space, and enjoy itself in its system. 
We are doing nothing for the maintenance of the uni¬ 
verse; constitute only a single speck; have our place in 
the immensity of animated existence; breathe as we 
are breathed; turn on the great w^heel of ages; receive 
the impulse to action with all material being, from an 
eternal, central Mover, sovereignly active, free, inde¬ 
pendent. 


OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 


33 


The durability of these special forces, which impel 
through the space of life allotted, varies extremely. In 
some of the more minute, animal forms, in which a 
solitary, sexual intercourse, suffices for the reproduction 
of several, successive generations, it is probable, they 
exhaust and give place to death in a few short hours. 
While among some of the most colossal of the vegetable 
races, as the mountain oak, they keep up their action for 
most twenty centuries. But there is a limit, they can¬ 
not pass. 

The bases of vegetables being fewer than those of 
animals, they approach nearer the mineral state. In 
their alimentation, they decompose carbonic acid and 
water; unburn , as I may say, the bodies, they assimilate. 
Their vital chemistry is less complex. To this circum¬ 
stance and the greater simplicity of their elements, is 
probably due their greater average longevity. 

The assimilation of animals is a true combustion. 
Since they organize a greater variety of elements, the 
chemical forces in them must offer a greater opposition 
to the force of organic combination. Hence the con¬ 
tinual tendency of their living molecules to rebel and 
escape; they are subjected to a greater variety of morbid 
vicissitudes, and more accidental mortality. 

We may, therefore, suppose at the summit of the 
actual scale, life has reached the greatest perfection, of 
which the present constitution of matter is susceptible, 
or will allow:—And that if it were possible to form a 
living creature of a greater number of chemical bodies 
or elements, it could not be sustained; and life and 
death would be brought in perfect approximation. 

We cannot, however, profound what measures out, 
and defines the living space. It varies, as we have seen, 
throughout the zoological series. Every individual 
passed through the different phases of its being, dies. 
All came from the dust and return. No animated being, 

3 * 


34 


PHENOMENA OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 


yet, in all its ages, has ever enjoyed a moment’s repose. 
The force, that impels it on to dissolution, never ceases 
action. It can never be said of this force, as it can of 
the bodies, it vivifies: 

“ Nox erat, et placidum carpebant fessa soporem 
Corpora per terras, sylvaeque et saeva quierant 
Aequora: quum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu 
Quum tacet omnis ager: pecudes, pictaeque volucres, 

Quaeque lacus late liquidos, quaeque aspera dumis 
Rura tenent somno positae sub nocte silenti 
Lenibant curas, et corda oblita laborem: 

Nature never softens her movements, smoothens out 
the wrinkles of things to charm, secure its slumbers, and 
reanimate its vigor. Always vigilant, active, it cannot 
sleep. It permits no tarrying on the sacred ground, it 
traverses. Mortals should suspect, there is something 
inconceivably momentous at the end of the course, 
through which they are so constantly and rapidly hur¬ 
ried; and look on Heaven alone, as worthy of all ambi¬ 
tion. Death is the only couch, on which all the living 
rest. They are carried on by a ceaseless motion, till 
they plunge its frightful abyss. But the immortal fire, 
which animates them, does not quench, is not extin¬ 
guished. It darts forward through ceaseless generations, 
the fervid breath of the Almighty, imperishable. 

But matter is only the common, subordinate material 
of life: let us elevate our conception to the First Being, 
the most sublime, incomprehensible, of whose will all 
lives are but the simple, varied expressions. 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


35 


CHAPTER II. 

THE ORIGINAL BEING—GOD—DIVINE CREATOR. 

If the life, he has set up here, which appears to con¬ 
stitute the top, and the frieze-work of our terrestrial 
edifice, over whose general aspects, we have just glanced, 
continues to be an impenetrable mystery, about Him 
hang shades still more heavy and voluminous. His 
great idea soars beyond all the limits, by which we are 
accustomed to define things, and render them tangible 
to our understandings. Milton philosophic made his 
throne dark, purely from his excessive radiance. If 
light too intense overpowers the visual, a conception so 
unwieldy, subdues equally in proportion, the mental 
force in us. 

Our thought full of industry and enterprise, delights 
to wander, where matter furnishes the pathway. Early 
it discovered many of the great, unalterable principles 
of the sciences, and produced a perfect demonstration of 
a vast number of their most abstruse and difficult truths. 

It did not plant the feet of these sciences alone on the 
earth. It subjected the celestial bodies to calculation, 
and prescribed the laws for the regulation of their eco¬ 
nomy. Not mean, low, in its ambition, it took nature 
for its field—inheritance—and, for the exploration, pos¬ 
session, relied solely on its own powers and resources. 
The vast abundance, variety and perfection of its labors 
have become its eternal eulogia and monuments. 

It did not fear to pass over those deep gulfs in space, 
which lie between and intercept the celestial spheres. 
It was cheerful and easy wherever it could behold those 
wandering fires above, which of old, the harmonious 
Orpheus sang. But outside, beyond, where commence 


36 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


those wilds, which sweep out lonely and shadowy to 
infinity: where nought is visible but the empty prints 
of Jehovah’s footsteps; sacred haunts, holy solitudes! 
where only spirit pure from matter, and the Being of all 
beings dwell; conscious now of the presence and near 
approach, the idea grows too full, too strong; its courage 
fails, and it shudders out, “The hills saw thee, and fled.” 
“At thy coming forth fromTeman, pestilence and burn¬ 
ing coals went before thee.”—“ The mountains saw thee, 
and trembled. By thy naked bow the earth was cleft:— 
The deep roared out and lifted up his mighty billows. 
—The sun and moon, ‘at thy sight,’ stood still in their 
habitation: but at the light of thine arrows, and the 
shining of thy glittering spear, they went away.” 

All created existences fear and do him homage. They 
know him august, invincible. Tempests, thunder, light¬ 
ning, earthquakes, hailstones,—some terrific movement 
—announce his approach. The sun and moon discover 
him coming, and stop in their habitation, lest they should 
be seen. But at the sight of his fearful armour, they 
escape from him. They seem to be familiar w r ith the 
effects of his anger and dread it; as if they had wit¬ 
nessed the earth cleft by his bow; and heard the pained 
ocean wounded, roar out, and toss up “ his mighty bil¬ 
lows.” 

But when it is a feeble mortal he is approaching, to 
communicate his special will, still some fearful enun¬ 
ciations make known his coming. The strength of the 
breath, he has placed in his nostrils appears to be mea¬ 
sured; and it is only “ a still small ‘ supportable,’ voice” 
that manifests the actual presence. Thus in the first 
book of Kings, it was said to the prophet Elijah;—“ Go 
forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And 
behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind 
rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before 
the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


37 


the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the 
earthquake: and after the earthquake a lire; but the 
Lord was not in the lire : and after the lire a still small 
voice .” 

How sublime and incomprehensible he appears in the 
operations, by which he brought forth and established 
the existing system of things: “ He stretcheth out the 
North over the empty space, andhangeth the earth upon 
nothing. He has measured the waters in the hollow of 
his hand.”—“ The nations are as the drop of the bucket, 
and are counted as the small dust of the balance.”—“ He 
taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” 

Language, by which we express every thing, by which 
we think, strained to its utmost strength, appears most 
puny and powerless, in its efforts to represent this great 
idea of all other ideas. Stimulated by inspiration, it 
clothes the great forms of matter with flesh and blood, 
perception and sentiment. They live and feel before him. 
Is he angry, the sun and moon go away; pleased the little 
hills clap their hands with joy. What, then, ought the 
the true intelligence of mortals do; intelligence without 
metonomy! And if man, the noise of whose war shakes 
the earth, the splendor and glory of whose rule, can 
found and make the wisest heads giddy;—man, who, in 
his science, has subdued nature, and rendered her forces 
subservient to his will; whose labor and achievements 
command our profoundest admiration; be but “ as the drop 
of the bucket, or the small dust of the balance,” what is 
Jehovah! 

The distance between our utmost, most successful con¬ 
ception, and the reality must ever be infinite. We only 
think through the intervention of organization—perceive 
as our senses are affected, learn from experience, medi¬ 
tate, and build our philosophy on our sensations. A cer¬ 
tain order holds between these sensations and the objects 
which excite them, the order of antecedence and sequence , 


38 


BEING ORIGINAL-IDEA OF. 


or of cause and effect. Did he immediately excite these 
sensations, as Malebranche supposed we could directly 
perceive him; but it is only the objects, he has made, of 
which ourselves are a part, that excite them. 

For these objects we infer another and a higher order 
in which they stand in the same relation to a First, and 
Eternal Antecedence, as our sensations do to them. 
We, then, perceive him only indirectly through these 
objects, which constitute the basis of all the experimen¬ 
tal sciences, himself not experimental. Living amid the 
fluctuations of our world, breathing only on the tombs of 
perished existence, we cannot elevate our thoughts ex¬ 
perimentally to the first Being, whose ideas, according to 
Plato and Pythagoras, constituted the beauty and fulness 
of nature. We cannot understand the eternal reason, 
truth and nature of things, and the denomination the 
most appropriate to our measure of intelligence is the 
Great Incomprehensible. 

That his full idea soars infinitely beyond us, is mani¬ 
fest from the religion of all antiquity. How varied are the 
moral character, qualities and abilities of the Gods, who 
have enjoyed the worship of men! In general, we may 
say, the taste of the people, the amount of knowledge and 
civilization, have modified, constituted the standard of 
their perfection, in the countries, where they have reign¬ 
ed. Climate too all powerful in modifying man, has 
exerted its influence on them. The Gods of the North, 
have been fierce and sanguinary;*—obstreperous as the 

* The most ancient Woden or Odin, is represented in the Runic 
Mythology as holding a drawn sword ! Thunderbolts encircle his brow. 
He is the “Father of slaughter,” “ the active, roaring Deity.” His fame— 
greatness of his exploits—expands to the burning world, and ladens “the 
vessel, which floats on the ages” or the earth. His chief delight is in 
battle, “the bath of blood.” The Ruler of the Gods and the Father of 
men, he receives those only as his children into Valhall or Midgard, the 
city of friendship, who die valiantly, fighting with sword in hand. 

In this delightful city, whose roofs are of flaming gold, Nymphs of 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


39 


blasts from the icy seas, which howl through their coun¬ 
try:—while those of the South, have been mild and pa- 

unfading beauty, whose bosoms glow with chaste, burning love, attend 
and hand them the sparkling wine in goblets of their enemies’ skulls. 

The vitality of the religion of this God is war. “ Let the blue steel be 
dyed in blood,” say the sacred songs of the Voluspa; “ let the wolf lap the 
streaming gore; the screaming vulture have his prey to-day.” “ We fought 
with our swords, when in my early youth, I went toward the east to 
prepare a bloody prey for the ravenous wolves.” “We fought with our 
swords, and made the feast of the yellow-footed eagle.” “ A dew of 
blood distilled from our swords. The arrows which flew in search of the 
helmets, bellowed through the air. The pleasure of that day was equal to 
that of clasping a fair virgin in my arms. We fought with swords in 
the Flemings’ land.—There the sword bit the polished helmet.—The 
blue steel all reeking with blood, fell at length upon the golden mail. 
Many a virgin bewailed the slaughter of that morning. 

“ We fought with our swords in the isles of the south.—There died 
many of my valiant warriors. In the shower of arms Rogvaldur fell.— 
In the play of arms came the deadly spear: his lofty crest was dyed 
with gore. The birds of prey bewailed his fall: They lost him that 
prepared them banquets.” 

The Edda and Voluspa or the most ancient Edda, are full of these 
martial poems. They teach war as the first, the noblest occupation of 
men; and that valor alone secures the happiness of another life. 

The worship of Odin or the religion of the Edda, was that of the 
ancient Germans, Cimbri, Icelanders, Celts, Danes, Swedes, Norwe¬ 
gians, Scandinavians,—most all the north of Europe and Asia. It was 
the religion of the people, who crushed the Roman empire; and fixed 
the fate of modern, civilized nations. Many words in our language, 
especially the names of the days of our week, evince it was the religion 
of our ancestors,—as Wednesday, day of Woden or Odin; Thursday, 
day of Thor, son of Odin; Friday, from Freja or Freya, the hyper¬ 
borean Venus. 

The great pleasure of the furious Odin was the clashing of shields, 
and the uproar of blood. How striking is the contrast between him and 
Osiris, a southern divinity. Osiris leaves his wife Isis, and the flowery 
leafy fields of Egypt, where Zephyrus flutters softly on his purple wings, 
diffusing fresh fragrance; and sets out for the conquest of the world. 
His only weapon is a soft-toned lute; beautiful Nymphs and dancing 
Satyrs attend him on the expedition. He overruns ^Ethiopia, Africa, 
Asia, and a part of Europe. He teaches the nations agriculture, the 
useful arts, builds cities, originates commerce, imparts a taste for know- 


40 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


cific, devoted to ease and pleasure. In the Temperate 
Zone, they have been most noble, where man has been 
most perfect and elegant. 

SECTION I. 

EFFORTS AND LIMITS OF REASON. 

We only feel, think, as I have said, through the living 
organism. This organism by its own, solitary move¬ 
ments or operations, does not generate perceptions of ex¬ 
ternal objects. These perceptions are the effects of im¬ 
pressions, made by such objects, on the external senses. 
All external existences are, therefore, active in the causa¬ 
tion of our ideas of them, the senses being incapable of 
self-excitement. The encephalon is the immediate organ 
of the perceptions, or medium through which the mind 
enjoys them. All perception depends upon the original 
excitement of the senses; the senses themselves material, 
corporeal objects alone appear to be their true stimula¬ 
tors. It is through the materiality of the body, the mind 
enjoys intercourse with the universe, and obtains the 
primordeal elements, upon which afterwards its reason 
operates. 

Impressions, then, made on the senses, and the con¬ 
sequent excitement of the encephalon, in our economy, 
are the inflexible conditions, through which the mind 
displays all its activity, and enjoys its life in nature. 
M. de la Romiguiere conceives the mind passive in re¬ 
ledge, and establishes morals and the worship of the Gods. He achieves 
by the power of harmonious numbers, what Odin does with the shining 
steel. (Vid. M. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities containing the Edda and 
Voluspa; Taciti Historia Germani; P. E. Jablonski Pantheon iEgyp- 
tiorum; M. l’Abbe Pluche, Histoire du Ceil; Bryant’s New System 
or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, for much interesting discussion 
on this subject. 


BEING ORIGINAL-IDEA OF. 


41 


ceiving impressions, but essentially active in the percep¬ 
tion ol them. This fact, admitted now by so many philoso¬ 
phers, does not, however, militate against the general truth 
expressed here. The impressions always antecede the mind’s 
action, and if they were not offered, we cannot tell in what 
state it might remain. 

All the beings of nature, I have said, persevere in con¬ 
tinual excitement, progress existence by the efforts they 
make. Our being appears so organically arranged, as to 
receive the impulse, which causes impressions, from these 
efforts. They excite in us a double motion; constitute the 
source whence our pulsating life derives all its activity, and 
our mind its perceptions. 

Our organization is only a simple element in the great 
mechanics of nature , through which we are subjected to the 
universal laws , and made to respond to her general move¬ 
ment. Upon this view of the subject, if a mind like ours, 
were placed in the midst of the universe, with an organiza¬ 
tion irrespondent to these laws — unimpressible by this 
movement—it could neither know its own existence, nor 
that of any other.—Since the organic system does not re¬ 
spond to a spiritual, but only to a material w r orld, it cannot 
perceive any nature or being not material. And if such 
a mind, with an organization impressible, full of reaction, 
were transplanted into a purely spiritual creation , it would 
remain for ever inactive, since such existences would be 
incapable of exciting those organic changes, indispensable 
to the display of its faculties, or to which their activity is 
subordinate. 

The mind, therefore, in its simple operations, or those 
connected with the more complex action of the organic 
structure, could never reach the idea of an eternal Exist¬ 
ence, or sovereign, independent Mind, separate, original, 
distinct from matter. But can it, in its higher and more 
complicated movements—those of reason? 

According to MM. Condillac and Destutt-Tracy, reason¬ 
ing consists in different acts of sensibility; or in remember- 
4 


42 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


ing, comparing and perceiving the different relations between 
our sensations or ideas. It is the evaluation and co-ordina¬ 
tion of our ideas in relation to things. Our sensations and 
their external exciting causes, are indissolubly connected in 
our mind. The agreements or disagreements, we feel to exist 
between our sensations, we intuitively infer to exist between 
the causes which excited them. Thus the mind armed with 
the discernment of the difference of things inferred from the 
agreements or disagreements of its sensations;—or what is 
the same thing, animated with the discernment of their im- 
mutable relations and proportions, it acquires a new force; 
passes the limits of matter, and rushes forward on spiritual 
ground, to embrace the world’s Divinity. 

But the delusion vanishes. It is only the relations and 
proportions within the empire of the senses, it has disco¬ 
vered ; in which exists an eternal vacuum , which can only be 
filled up by admitting such a Being. He exists necessarily; 
and it is more the place he occupies, than himself, that is 
manifest. 

The mind in this process of reason, therefore, feels, knows 
Him only the first Relation, Proportion, Unit, Cause, whence 
have emanated all those series of causes, things with their 
phenomena, which constitute nature. 

But by what manipulation of ideas, if I may so say, does 
the mind arrive at the knowledge of his moral and intellec¬ 
tual qualities or nature ? Are the universal harmony and 
order, which prevail, the infallible adaptation of means to 
the achievement of ends; the general fitness, efficiency of 
things—the world’s system—competent to instruct us ? If 
we suppose all the finished labours of the omnipotent Crea¬ 
tor, lay before us; and we could comprehend all their high 
bearings and meanings, it is evident, we could not, even 
then, be certain of our knowledge. Since it is unphiloso- 
phical to think Him inactive, the fresh displays of creative 
power, to all future eternity, must continually be evolving 
new instruction, and presenting his nature, in novel and 
more glorious light. His knowledge must be for ever pro- 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


43 


gressive. Our researches into the phenomena of existing 
nature, promptly find their limits. 

We know something of the earth’s crust, of our domestic 
stars; but what do we know of transplanetary matter? of 
those heavens beyond the alternations of our seasons, sprink¬ 
ling the exhausting telescope with burning specks!—where 
the last blue skirt of space, hangs out to receive the last glit¬ 
tering form of matter ! Here reason can hope for no triumph; 
its efforts are nothing. 

Again: could we profound the system of the world, ano¬ 
ther perplexing difficulty would occur.— Can we trace the 
image , copy of the Divine Artist in his works ? 

Contemplating human osteology, Galen, struck with so 
much design and sagacity, it is said, was convinced, and 
converted to Christianity. It is thought the mother-ideas of 
many of our inventions were derived, at first, from nature, 
as the motion on hinges, etc., from the action of the 
atlas on the vertebra dentata. Astronomers observe, the 
position of the lunar orbit in relation to that of the earth’s 
—her course in the ecliptic—is such, as to occasion the 
fewest possible number of solar and lunar eclipses; or that 
any alteration would cause these eclipses to be more fre¬ 
quent. 

Wherever we can explore, profound nature dynamical, 
we meet with this sagacity of Galen, with the boundless, 
most consummate action of intelligence. Indeed, this intelli¬ 
gence often holds up the flambeau to theory, and alone con¬ 
ducts exhausted science further on the career of nature, 
procuring for it fresh triumphs. Thus man by the first 
light that shone on things, is often enabled to trace their 
true philosophy; as when Newton saw in w^ater an inflam¬ 
mable principle, long before Lavoisier evolved its hydrogen 
base. 

The displays of wisdom, design,—in the mechanism of 
the world, are the same in quality, which we observe in 
the ingenious works of human art. If, therefore, with Dr. 
Paley* and other theologians like him, we make this wis- 

* Natural Theology. 



44 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


dom participate in the Divine Nature, or what is the same 
thing, from this wisdom infer Him to be wise, we make 
our wisdom or our minds a part of his substance, which is 
Platonism. I think it will be discovered theologians are in 
error, in making such inference; and that they transcend 
the proper limits of reason, or make of it an improper appli¬ 
cation. 

The art, skill, foresight, intelligence, wisdom, manifest 
in the universe, stand evidently, in the same relation to the 
supreme Opifex, as do ourselves, and all other created ex¬ 
istences. Instead of being parts or constituent of his nature, 
they are only parts of things, he has made; or the manner 
in which they exist, and obey his sovereign will. To attri¬ 
bute to Him benevolence, goodness, knowledge, intelligence, 
because they are evidenced in the formation and mechanics 
of the world, is, obviously, to draw his likeness, nature 
setting for the picture. If we attribute to him wisdom, 
goodness, because we observe these qualities in nature; we 
likewise observe matter, and for the same reason, ought to 
attribute to him materiality. This materiality, which 
gives to the universe its visible, tangible form, universal 
base of ail worlds, that pour through all space and time, 
floods of radiant glory, impresses us most. The benevo¬ 
lence, fitness, design,—manifested in nature, are the off¬ 
spring of much study and reflection. We only know them 
after we have thought. But matter overpowering our vision 
in the solar blaze; in myriads of chaste and resplendent 
forms, thronging the arc of night, strike and charm, at once, 
our senses. 

Do not our theologians, pursuing this argument, incau¬ 
tiously follow the light of Revelation, which they mistake 
for the light of reason? 

In the double extension of time and space, we can trace 
no limits to the world. To our observation, it is every 
where boundless. The power, which originated, holds 
together its vast body; established its equable laws, and 
maintains forever their operation, transcends all comprehen- 


BEING ORIGINAL-IDEA OF. 


45 


sion. The dynamical adaptation and arrangement of its 
parts, bringing forth imperturbable order, demanded know¬ 
ledge perfectly inconceivable. The organization of innu¬ 
merable lives,—noble appanage of our star, and probably of 
all others,—the general beauty and excellence of their forms; 
the arrangements, provisions made for their comfort and 
enjoyment, could only have originated in a benevolence and 
goodness, to which we can ascribe no boundaries. And 
matter, precious, common base of all physical existence, 
whose stupendous, noble forms wander and glitter in the 
deep abyss of heaven above us, subdues all our thought in 
its immensity. 

Reason, therefore, delineating the first Cause from the 
qualities and properties — phenomena — of the things He 
has made, can only conceive of Him, as infinite , omnipotent , 
all-wise , surpassing investigation , infinitely good , benevolent , 
eternal and material . 

Thus in the absence of Revelation, reason, the sole guide, 
the early philosophers were unable to extend their researches 
into the origin of the world beyond the existence of matter. 
In studying its phenomena, Parmenides, Aristotle, Demo¬ 
critus, Pliny, Lucretius, the atomic and Italic sect of phi¬ 
losophers,* felt those awful and sublime qualities, which 
appertain to the Divinity; but they could not think of a 
pure eternal mind, as their subject. They thought right 
on, followed up reason, made no personifications of the sen¬ 
timents they felt, and terminated all their inquiries and 
meditations in making matter eternal, and the attributes of 
a Creator, eternal in matter. They have run the gauntlet 
of generations, covered with the odium of Atheism. But 
they lived mostly while it was still dark. 

All the first Gods pagans worshipped, were created by 
poetry or disfigured by its transforming light; and, without 
exception, material. So far as it can be trusted or will go, the 
etymology of their names show, they were the deifications of 
illustrious men, of fire, light, the sun or some of the celes- 

* Wait’s Jewish, Orient, and Class. Antiquities. 

4* 


46 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


tial bodies. Hesiod styles his treatise concerning them, or 
the fragments of it, time has honoured, theogony , the gene¬ 
ration and birth of the Gods. The title of his work evinces 
his opinion of them. Furthermore, there can exist no doubt, 
but the theogony of Hesiod is the cosmogony of Plato; a judg¬ 
ment approved by Cud worth,* and a plain proof, that the 
birth of the Gods was no other, than the birth of nature, 
and consequently, they were material. 

All their desires, acts of their lives, evince their sensitive, 
corporeal nature. How fierce and impetuous, if I may so 
express it, were the flesh and blood of the Olympic Jupiter ! 
When the great Ocean was thrice churned up from the bottom, 
and its waves covered the whole world, the Indian Vishnu, 
in the judgment of Sir W. Jones, one of the triple forms of 
Brahma, w T as compelled to change himself into a fish to save 
his own life.f He was fearful of death. 

If, therefore, their physical properties and qualities have 
been derived, copied from those of nature, their moral cha¬ 
racter plainly recognizes for its prototype, our humanity. 
This character but too evidently manifests its frailty, folly 
and insanity; and like language does among different peo¬ 
ple, marks the progress of arts, sciences, improvement among 
the different nations, who offered them worship. With re¬ 
spect to these divinities, the remarkable expression of Dide¬ 
rot is true, “ Man hath made God after his own image. 7 ’ The 
biography, rather theography of Jupiter, whose superb tem¬ 
ples were once the glory and ornament of almost every 
country on earth, many of which still “ frown in ruins,” 
drawn to the truth and the life, would shame all justice, vir¬ 
tue, modesty; be at once a history of disgraceful amours, 
atrocities; of actions the most noble and sublime, qualities 
the most awful and reverential. 

We conclude finally, the true and full image of the Su¬ 
preme Being, cannot be copied from the substantial frame 
and mechanics of the world; while “ the invisible things 
of him—are clearly seen,” and “ understood;” and that his 

* Intellectual System of the Universe. t Dubois’ India. 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


47 


natural wisdom, foresight,—mentioned by the sacred writers, 
like many other things, are to be understood philosophically, 
as anthropomorphitisms. 


SECTION II. 

. y* 

REVELATION THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUE THEOGNOSY. 

We may suppose, man came forth in the earth, instructed 
in the knowledge of his Creator, of the duties and obligations, 
he owed to him :—That this sacred, precious knowledge, was 
taught to the patriarchal families; was preserved through 
the transition of generations; and, in the household of Noah, 
survived the universal cataclysm, which destroyed the ba¬ 
lance of the race. 

It is entirely certain, the notion of a distinct, superintend¬ 
ing, all-powerful mind, at a very early annal of history, did 
exist almost over the whole face of the world; and can be 
traced, with a good degree of surety, to near the time of Noah, 
the second father of human kind. Deformed by time, dis¬ 
figured by fable, vestiges of this awful and sublime idea, are 
to be found in the Edda, the Yoluspa, of the North; the Shu- 
king, the Pruranas, Yedas, Zendavesta, of China, India, Per¬ 
sia. All these curious and sacred monuments of antiquity, 
containing the oldest traditions, histories in the world, have 
likewise plain allusions to the creation! an universal deluge 
by water; and most if not all of them, to another, by fire, 
which will end in the final destruction of the world.* 

*“ Of the flesh of the Giant Ymir,” says the Edda, “was formed the earth; 
of his sweat, the seas ; of his bones, the mountains ; of his teeth, the rocks ; 
of his hair, the herbs of the field; of his skull, the heavens; and of his 
brains, the noxious clouds,” 

“ The sons of Bore,” continues the same record, “slew the Giant Ymir, 
‘ figure of the earth,’ and there ran so much blood from his wounds, that all 
the families of the giants of the frost were drowned in it, except one single 
giant, who saved himself with his household. He is called Bergelmer. 
He escaped by happening to be aboard in his bark.” By him was preserved 


48 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


By whatever name this universal, sovereign Mind was 
called, whether Orornasdes, Serapis, Kneph, Osiris, Pan, Iao, 
Jehovah, Jupiter, Tai-ki, Tshangti, it is certain such a mind 
received the homage of men from the Oases of Egypt to the 
furthest limits of Iceland; from the eastern shores of China, 
to the foot of Caucasus. 

The records of all antiquity show, the first religion of men 
was universal; that idolatry and other corruptions were in¬ 
troduced after the fathers of nations had scattered abroad, 
and their generations had peopled different and remote coun¬ 
tries. Among all the Gods to whom the fecundity of their 
minds had given birth, they still retained the remembrance 
of the Supreme Numen of their fathers, and of his ancient 
creation of the world. These remembrances are to be found 
in countries and epochs very distant from one another, show¬ 
ing they had been carefully preserved. 

Ovid, who laboriously consulted the traditions of antiquity, 
acknowledges a supreme Ruler, Pater Omnipotens; and 
evinces in his Mctamorphoscon, he was acquainted with the 
fundamental ideas of the Mosaic history of creation. 

In nova fert animus mutatas discere formas 
Corpora. Dii coeptis— 

Aspirate meis : primaque ob origine mundi 
Ad mea perpetuum deducite tempore carmen. 

Ante mare et tellus, et, quod tegit omnia, ccelum, 

Unus erat toto Naturae vultus in orbe, 

Quern dixere Chaos ; rudis indigestaque moles ; 

Nec quicquam, nisi pondus iners, congestaque eodem 
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum, 

Nullus adhucmundo praebebat lumina Titan 
—Nec circumfuso pendebat in aere tellus 
Ponderibus librata suis. 

his race. The Chaldean theogonies, according to Berosus, contain similar 
ideas. 

In the twilight of the gods, Odin puts on his golden helmet, and his re¬ 
splendent cuirass, preparing for battle with the wolf Fenris. He is devoured 
by the wolf; when a black conflagration rages through Heaven and earth de¬ 
stroying whatever exists. “ The sun is darkened ; the earth is overwhelmed 
in the sea; the shining stars fall from heaven ; a vapour mixed with tire rises 
and a vehement heat prevails to heaven itself.”— Voluspa. 


/ 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 49 

From the same venerable sources Horace, no doubt, drew 
the elements of the sublime theology, he so beautifully sings 
in the 12th Ode of his first book. 

Quid prius dicam solids parends 
Laudibus, qui res hominum ac Deorum, 

Qui mare et terras, variisque mundum 
Temperat horis ? 

Unde nil majus generator ipso; 

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum. 

And Virgil, who had studied much what had been written 
before him, and acquired just notions, makes Venus address 
him, 

O Pater, O hominum Divumque aeterna potestas! 

It could be shown from innumerable passages, that both 
the Greek and Latin Poets, among all the Gods they recog¬ 
nized, admitted only one— z £ vs —or Jupiter—as original, su¬ 
preme and ruler of the others. The same remark applies 
equally to ancient Persia, Egypt, India, Arabia, China, 
Scandinavia. 

Contrarily, Mr. Hume,* from his manner of reasoning, is 
led to believe idolatry was the first religion of mankind. It 
is true idolatry can be traced to a very early stage of society; 
and polytheism, pantheism, to the first systematic efforts of 
reason to account for the origin, order and maintenance of 
the world. But if idolatry did exist early, it is no proof; 
since the true religion can be traced to the first ages them¬ 
selves; and since it is unreasonable to suppose, the first 
men were turned loose untutored savages to roam the world. 

All antiquity presents two modifications of the prevailing 
theologies—the learned and the vulgar. Plutarch says, 
“some of the Gods are unworthy of credit, and not to be 
believed in.” We may suppose he alludes to those of the 
illiterate, who could not elevate their conceptions to the ob¬ 
ject of philosophic worship. Some of the philosophers, 
struck with the sluggishness of matter, banished from the 

CT TD 7 

notion of the Supreme Divinity all corporeal qualities. Those 


* Dissertation on the Natural History of Religion. 


50 


BEING ORIGINAL-IDEA OF. 


■uninitiated in the mysteries of learning, were not capable 
of such sublime abstractions; and the philosophers were not 
careful to correct the vulgar errors* of the popular religion 
of their country. The two theologic systems often varied 
extremely. Those, who have transmitted their history, have 
not always made the proper distinctions, which has caused 
posterity much labor and difficulty in forming correct opinions 
of the worship of ancient people, and been the source of 
much perplexity, error and disputation. 

Notwithstanding, however, the corruptions, which have 
been introduced by philosophers as well as the illiterate, 
and the darkness time has shed, the remains of the first 
pure religion, as I have said, may be traced to most all 
ancient people. It is manifested in many of their sacred 
rites and ceremonies; in their knowledge more or less 
obscure of the creation, early events and accidents of the 
world. “ The higher you ascend in antiquity,” says M. 
Gouget,f “the nearer you approach the first ages after the 
creation, the more vivid become the traces of the knowledge 
of the Divine Creator.” According to Diogenes Laertius, 
the cosmogony of Linus, among the oldest of the Greek 
poets, begins: 

“ Hv T’OT'f TfOi Xg 0V0 $ £V ^ UpartO-Vt 

showing he had received the tradition of the supernatural 
origin of things. Dr. HydeJ thinks the Persians retained 
a more expanded knowledge of the first universal religion, 
than most of other nations. The Brachmans, according to 
Strabo, believed the world was created, and will be destroyed 
by God, who governs it. But, by what means did this 
knowledge become diffused among so many nations? 

The immortality of the soul and a ruling Power distinct 
from nature, were first developed and taught in Egypt and 
India. Thales, Strabo, Hipparchus—the noble students of 
Greece,—early resorted to Egypt for instruction. From 

* Vid. Leland’s Advantage and Necessity of the Christ. Revelation, vol. 1. 

t De l’origine des Loix, des Arts, et cet. Tome 2. p. 451. 

| Hist. vet. Persarum. 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


51 


the mouths of the priests, the faithful ministers of Kneph, 
and depositaries of all wisdom, they learned these sublime 
doctrines, and carried them home to be transplanted in 
their native country. They were first proclaimed in Greece 
by Pythagoras and Plato, the illustrious founders of two 
great schools of philosophy, whose fame will continue, when 
all the sculptured marble of their country shall have 
perished. Egypt, where they were taught, wTence have 
been derived so many mother-ideas of the existing sciences, 
was the country to which Joseph was sold by his wicked, 
unnatural brethren. By his wisdom and virtues, here Joseph 
rose to consequence and importance in the royal house of 
the empire. From the high and popular station, he occu¬ 
pied, he must have enjoyed abundant opportunity of im¬ 
parting to the Egyptians, the instructions, traditions, he 
had received from his pious father. 

When the Assyrian monarchy began to expand its power, 
and assert its right over the conscience, Abraham, to pre¬ 
serve his religion pure, emigrated to the West, and ulti¬ 
mately into Egypt with his posterity. Here, it is said, he 
taught the true theology, and some of the useful sciences. 

It was likewise the country of Moses, who, like Cyrus 
and Romulus, was exposed in infancy, but unlike them in 
the power he trusted, became the instrument of Heaven for 
the delivery of his oppressed nation; and for the establish¬ 
ment of “a kingdom, which should have no end.” Divinely 
inspired, he taught the people the true worship. Egypt, 
associated with so many early recollections of our religion, 
has become indissolubly connected with its history. 

In the explosion of our race from the foot of Mount Ararat, 
and their subsequent emigrations to distant regions, we may 
suppose, they all carried with them some true notions of 
God: traditions of the creation, of the deluge, and other 
remarkable events, vestiges of which are to be found in the 
Voluspa, the Shu-king,—all the venerable monuments, I 
have cited. The light too afforded by some researches* 


* History of the European Languages. A. Murray. 


52 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 


recently made, to trace the path of these emigrations, and the 
consanguinity of nations, by the history and affiliation of 
languages, altogether favour this view of the subject. 

We know the Persian monarchy overthrew the Assyrian 
empire, liberated the captive Jews, from whom the Persians 
may have brought back ideas of the true religion into their 
own country. The Greeks afterwards conquered the Per¬ 
sians. Since vestiges of this religion are to be found in 
Persia, they no doubt obtained some notions of it from them, 
as well as from the schools of Egypt. Historians assure us, 
many new and improved theological principles spread 
throughout all Greece, after the return of Alexander’s army 
from the conquest of the East, which confirms this view of 
the subject. Strabo and Longinus were acquainted with 
the writings of Moses; the one admired the wisdom of his 
laws, the other, the beauty and sublimity of his style. And 
we are certain, whatever the Greeks knew, the Romans 
learned. 

If, then, the Greeks, who visited foreign people, collected 
the knowledge, wisdom, traditions of the world ; made their 
literature the focus which since has radiated all ages with 
the light which was, learned some correct notions of the 
eternal, sovereign Mind from the priests of Memphis,— 
sages of Egypt,—these priests and sages, themselves, had 
enjoyed the instructions of Joseph, Moses, Abraham.—Be¬ 
sides, still earlier, these teachers of the Greeks may have 
derived some traditions from Cham or Sham, who, it is con¬ 
jectured by many of the learned, built in the Oases of their 
country, the temple of Jupiter-Ammon, or temple of Jupiter 
erected by Cham, son or grandson of Noah. And if Jupiter 
or Jove , as many believe, is derived from Jehovah , by drop¬ 
ping the Hebrew aspirates or pronunciation, then this tem¬ 
ple was built in honour of Jehovah by the descendant of 
Noah, and his worship established. 

And if in the Edda, the Yoluspa,—the most ancient re¬ 
cords of China, India, etc., vestiges of the true theology 
are to be found, all corresponding in their general bearing 


I 


BEING ORIGINAL—IDEA OF. 53 

and character, they must have been carried to the North, 
the South, and the East from the country of Noah, the 
common focus, whence all nations went forth. 

Thus, finally, we trace the idea and belief of an all-power¬ 
ful, immaterial sovereign Mind—an eternal, spiritual Creator, 
which, under different names and disguises, have prevailed 
among all mankind, to Revelation, as the true, primeval 
origin; and establish, that such conceptions are beyond the 
loftiest flights, the efforts of the most sublime reason.—Re¬ 
velation ! medium of communication, which unites us eter¬ 
nally with the Divinity.—Beautiful, everlasting mirror! in 
which we behold his will, the object, end of our being.— 
Eternity made visible !—ourselves understood !! 

Twice this beautiful idea of revealed religion, was dying 
away upon the world; twice it has been riveted upon the 
hearts of men ; first by Moses, lastly, by our blessed Saviour 
—in his life—in his tragedy of Mount Calvary.. 

Revelation ! beautiful star! that lights the footsteps of the 
forlorn, long-lost children of a Father, to the paternal, celes¬ 
tial home! 

We have collected rapidly the notion of the first Being, 
from whom all others have descended:—to whom appertains 
whatever is included in Maximus, Optimum, Imperator: — 
Who is before and after, above and below; encircles by his 
presence the t’o ftav , what is, but is not encircled; imparts life 
and being,- but receives none; moves, but is not moved; com¬ 
municates his knowledge, but cannot be known. 

Let us contemplate matter in its system, first condition, 
universal base, as I have said, of all vitality. 


5 


54 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE MATERIAL SYSTEM—NASCENT LIFE. 

Independently or beyond our sensations, we know not 
matter. These sensations being the sequences or effects in 
our living organism, caused by its action—or changes in us 
—which the mind perceives, we can only know it as their 
cause. A sensation being simply a material movement, 
impressed upon our sensitive structure, and perceived; and 
the sensations being extremely various, we must conclude, 
matter is endowed with an almost infinite diversity of active 
properties. This conclusion is fully confirmed by the fact, 
that in all the sciences, which experimentally consider it, a 
host of phenomena constantly occurs, to which, the most sa¬ 
gacious philosophers can assign no laws or reasons. These 
phenomena are the expressions of its active powers, which 
have continued to mock all human discernment. And, 
although experimental physics, occasionally obtains signal 
triumphs; fritters away a little darkness here and there, 
encouraging the mind on in an eternal career of discovery; 
yet we may suppose, in any limited duration of ages, in any 
height, to which knowledge can reach, it will still present 
new phases. 

When we consider, that the power of all astronomical 
motion resides in all space, as in the astral bodies themselves; 
so that if a new planet were projected within the limits of 
our system, it would be put in motion by an omnipresent en¬ 
ergy, it would meet there; or respond to the great solar 
action—matter retires completely from us, and is covered in 
the most impenetrable darkness. And when we remember, 
at the actual time, that philosophers, in the generalization of 
the facts of our knowledge, are inclined to regard the molicu- 
lar attractions, the imponderable or polar forces, only as modi- 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


55 


fications of the great cause of the siderial movements, we 
may suspect, much of what we know is not entirely certain; 
may hereafter admit of very different explanations; and 
science will still have often yet to retrace her footsteps, and 
set out on new routes. 


SECTION I. 

ORIGIN-HISTORY. 

The sacred writings, all early traditions, announce an in¬ 
cipient stage, chaos of the nascent w^orld. Then were dark¬ 
ness and confusion. Nature was without life; her aspect^ 
fermenting, bubbling seas, rolling amid loud, muttering 
thunder. The hours had not come forth; Aurora appeared 
with her amber-coloured locks; nor had the Seasons linked 
their rosy hands. 

The fiat of the all-powerful Mind went forth, or as in 
the Vulgate, Et Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. By a 
regular and successive series of operations, the different forms 
of the world were fashioned, and combined into a harmonious 
system of reciprocal action, which has continued since, the 
enduring monument of its Maker’s wisdom and power. 

Anxious about the past as the future, the human mind has 
always evinced an indomitable desire to beat its way up the 
stream of time to its source, and make itself the familiar 
spectator of the dramatic creation. It delights to look, and 
gaze round the cradle of things; and see infant being start 
from nothing to history. All antiquity abounds in labors of 
this sort. It has attempted to explore the infancy of things, 
by two separate routes or methods of reasoning; the one, a 
priori , the other, a posteriori. 

The first sages, who esteemed the gods every thing,* con¬ 
ceived or shaped the universe upon the models of their gran¬ 
deur, dignity, and antiquity. Such were the ancient Persians, 

* J. Barrett’s Inquiry into the Origin of the Constellations. 


56 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


Indians,* Egyptians, Chaldeans, Chinese, Scythians.—In 
their fabulous account of the world, they conceived of Eons 
or revolutions included in vast cycles of time extending back 
almost infinitely. In these Eons, they afforded room for the 
displays of the prodigious powers of their Divinities, and set 
forth their great ages. According to Moshiem,f the Eons were 
of various orders, both the partial Creators , and the elements 
of which the world was composed. I may remark en pas¬ 
sant , Buffon appears to have derived some brilliant materials 
from this philosophy of the ancient Gnostics, for his “Epochs 
of Nature.” 

The second method is the reasoning from the facts, or the 
laws and phenomena of nature. Thus Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus invented his crystalline spheres, and Descartes, his vor¬ 
tices, to unfold the world’s great order and idea. Like beau¬ 
tiful flowers, these two hypotheses bloomed, and were swept 
away in the tide of time. 

Pythagoras w r as the first, we know, who, emerging from 
chaos with the w T orld, and operating w T ith mystic numbers, 
he no doubt learnt from the priests of the Egyptian Hermes, 
placed the sun in the centre and made the planets move 
round him. Primus , hie canit errantem lunam , sohsque la¬ 
bor es — veritate . 

This idea long buried in the rubbish of antiquity, was re¬ 
vived by Copernicus. The demonstration of its truth, suc¬ 
cessfully begun by Galileo, Tycho-Brahe, advanced by Kep¬ 
ler, f was triumphantly completed by Newton. 

Although he completely developed the laws of the siderial 
movement, he was unable to conceive the first efforts, with¬ 
out supernatural impulsion. Could the cause of these first 
motions, which never yet for a moment have relaxed their 
intensity, be shown to be physical, what a triumph to the 
science! 

If, therefore, by the first method, the early sages con- 

* Vide Sir I. Newton on the Hindoo Zodiac. W. Jones’ Asiatic Researches. 

t Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. 

i Vide Dr. Brewster’s Life et. cet., of Newton, 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


57 


ceived the world upon the models of their divinities, and 
adapted it suitably for their sojourn and government; and 
if they were the primary principles, that governed in its 
first conceptions; it is the second method, or the principles 
of reason, established by Bacon, that reign in our day. 

Animated by the conceptions of Whiston and Leibnitz, 
Buffon, with these principles, which had so successfully 
conducted Newton, attempted to soar to the cunabida of 
things to deduce the order. A solitary sun lodged in space, 
and a comet to shiver it by contact, were the first elements. 
The pieces broken and projected off, would fall under the 
influence of the double attraction, forming orbits and planets 
at the same time. An original, frangible sun , and the inte¬ 
rior nutritive moulds of organic bodies conceived, the ideas 
of worlds and a living economy, were of easy evolution. 

Though fancy had seducing, irresistible charms for him, 
he was great. His mind full, saturated with eloquence, 
must long glow all over nature with peculiar light and 
warmth,* frightful to all rivalry. 

The numerous systems of cosmology, which preceded 

* I may be permitted to subjoin the testimony of M. le Com. de Lace¬ 
pede, which exhibits those sublime and spiritual sentiments, almost divine, 
which men indulge toward one another, who feel themselves the oracles, 
through which other mortals are to hear the voice of nature; and the eyes, 
through which they are to behold her. 

Buffon venoit de mourir. Ce deuxieme volume est termine par un eloge 
de ce grand homme, ou plutot par un hymne a sa memoire, par un dithy- 
rambe eloquent, que l’auteur suppose chante dans la reunion des naturalistes, 
“en l’honneur de celui qui a plane au-dessus du globe et de ses ages, qui a 
vii la terre sortant des eaux, et les abimes de la mer peuples d’etres dont les 
debris formeront un jour de nouvelles terres; de celui qui a grave sur un 
monument plus durable que le bronze les traits augustes du Roi de la crea¬ 
tion, et qui a assigne aux divers animaux leur forme, leur physionornie, et 
leur caractere, leur pays et leur nom.” Telles sont les expressions pom- 
peuses et magnifiques dans lesquelles s’exhalent les sentimens qui remplis- 
sent le cceur de M. de Lacepede. His last expressions, full of the piety of 
nature and her Creator to his physician, were, “ J, vais rejoindre Buffon.” 
Eloge Historique par Cuvier prefixed to the Histoire Naturelle de V homme of 
M. de Lacepede. 

5* 


58 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 

■ t - - ‘ v , 

and came immediately after Buffon, like his, contain but 
little solid instruction. They however have not been with¬ 
out their utility. The research and industry to which they 
gave origin, the numerous facts they caused to be collected, 
have all been serviceable in constructing the theory of actual 
geognosy. ’ 

It is in the true knowledge of our planet, we are more 
immediately and deeply interested, with which our fortunes 
are closely, directly connected;—our home, theatre, where 
all our ages have passed. We can never know the stars. 
Their astronomy only teaches us their relative weight, den¬ 
sity, size, distance, figure, statical force, velocity;—a certain 
routine of facts, which may extend infinitely both ways. 
It shows us only how nature figures in the abyss of space; 
and presses warmly upon our hearts with all its burning, 
roving fires, the great image of her Creator. By no dim 
traces does it lead us fearfully up to the momentous hour, 
when those fires begun to empurple the skirts of the eternal 
night, which preceded. Deaf, it did not hear the hymn of 
the morning stars, when they shouted for joy. Astronomy 
knows nothing of progressive existence; and presents nature 
ever as a modern. 

Where shall we seek for the knowledge we desire; where 
are the monuments, that point to the things, which have 
been ? There are no vestiges, they are not written in the 
sky. Can time, mowing with his scythe, mow utterance, 
and nothing remain to tell; has nature, in her long course, 
preserved no remembrances; “raised no white stone, daugh¬ 
ter of the oozy stream, to speak to other years?” 

The earth wears a new face; it has had other faces; its 
bosom is the sacred depository of her records, which have 
awaited the interpretation of human genius. The interpre¬ 
tation has been made in the current epoch; antiquity can 
speak. 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


59 


SECTION II. 

HISTORY OF THE EARTH. 

Inorganic or mineral bodies, the products of all countries 
alike, are strictly native no where. If, therefore, different 
species of rocks were carried from the tropics, and deposited 
in the soil of Norway, even if distinguishable, they would 
indicate nothing certain of their locality to some future 
geologist, who might examine them. If he were to discover 
their crystalline forms broken, their surfaces triturated by 
friction, or they had undergone fusion; these phenomena 
would indicate to him, there had, at some period, been vio¬ 
lent, terrestrial convulsions, rolling waves, and volcanic con¬ 
flagrations : but there might be nothing to point to the pre¬ 
cise time, when these changes occurred. 

Contrarily, living, organic bodies have peculiar, charac¬ 
teristic qualities. Their being in nature demands a variety, 
but a definite minuteness of conditions. They are only 
producible from one another according to species. If the 
species be destroyed, the race is extinguished forever. They 
have special relations to solar heat or to climate;—have an 
indigenous locality. They likewise have special relations to 
the different elements or great forms of terrestrial matter, 
to which their structures coaptate; and have in them also, 
as I may say, the same indigenous localities. They are 
paludal , fluviatic, terrestrial , oceanic . They cannot exist 
out of these indigenous localities, their separate nativities. 
They are, I may say, parts strictly of the places, where 
Nature has placed them to subsist. 

If, therefore, they be carried to other places, how r ever 
remote; in whatever parts of the world they may be found; 
in whatever situations of the terrestrial surface imbedded; 
they will point to these nativities, to which their structures 
coaptate; make known, long as the distinct traces of their 
forms remain, their countries. They, likewise, betray the 


60 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


localities, where mineral bodies containing them, have been 
formed; or whence they have been transported. They 
make these dumb bodies speak; rekindle the extinguished 
light on things where gloom, the shades of night had 
gathered for eternity; remould the forms of perished exist¬ 
ence; build up again the horizons of worlds, which had 
crumbled, fallen in;—articulate history and philosophy to 
laboring, scrutinizing reason. So that if in these subter¬ 
raneous rocks of Norway, supposed to have been transferred 
from the tropics, which can only indicate by their mecha¬ 
nical position, and by the action of the great chemical agents, 
this geologist were to discover but the prints of the leaves 
of the palm, the cocoa-nut tree, the anana or pine-apple; 
they would speak to him with new tongues, and manifest 
themselves in new relations. 

The mineral forms, spontaneous in their reproduction; 
not descended by an inflexible law from one another of the 
same species; not limited to any absolute duration; sub¬ 
jected only to changes from the general chemical and me¬ 
chanical forces, can only indicate the action of these forces; 
and, by their relative positions, the probable order, in which 
it occurred. Their manifestations, therefore, are only gene¬ 
ral ; they mark but vaguely the order of progressive exist¬ 
ence. 

But the organic forms, descended in a perpetual line from 
one another according to species since creation; subjected 
to exact periodicity of existence; incapable of existing out 
of their nativities, and proper inhabitable elements; liable 
to death by disease, mechanical violence, chemical agencies, 
atmospheric meteorizations; w r earing, as I may say, the 
name of their country and inhabitable element written on 
their foreheads, in all their structures, point out by their 
remains, in a special and definite manner, the changes of 
the world they have inhabited, and the order of their suc¬ 
cession. Every thing about them is precise, special, con- 
significative; and the historical instruction they yield, is 
of the same kind. 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


61 


Since the living remains entombed in solid rocks, wasted 
in the beds of the earth, are often in bad preservation, in order 
to obtain this instruction, it is indispensable to be able to 
decide with certainty, from a single entire fragment, the 
precise order of life, to which it belonged. Before, there¬ 
fore, the archives, which nature had preserved, could be 
read, the separate elements of animation or the great pro¬ 
blem, theory of organization which she had practised, the 
alphabet of life, remained of necessity to be deciphered. 

The ancients, who dissected but little, could never have 
understood this theory —divine alphabet —she has employed 
in recording our world’s great history. The triumph, glory 
of deciphering it, unequalled before , were reserved for the 
current annal. 

Our manner of writing forbids us the pleasure of pursuing 
the torrent of ideas until the light broke. I will only say, 
to the anatomical labors of Monro, and Blumenbach, of John. 
Hunter, in collecting and fitting up his Cabinet of Natural 
History, something is due. But Vic d-zer caught the first 
pure ray of light. In the subordination, general adaptations, 
and arrangements of the system of life, he obtained a glimpse 
before his death, of the great organic problem as practised and 
unfolded by the art of Nature. After him Bichat pushed 
forward his ideas; opened up vast and new routes, tasted 
some pure truth; but Death, jealous of Cuvier’s fame, the 
enemy of knowledge, pushed him suddenly from the think¬ 
ing theatre of Europe, his glory burning after him in the 
tears of philosophers. 

Cuvier and Newton were the most fortunate of men. Had 
they been born earlier, it would have been too soon for their 
glory. Often one generation comes in sight of truth, but 
several are exhausted before they overtake her. At the 
critical hour of the philosophical world, Cuvier appeared, his 
genius, the Aurora of a new, perpetual day. He looked, saw 
what had been done; what remained unfinished; profounded, 
comprehended the entire plan and meaning of organization. 


62 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


\ * 

“Des resultats plus surprenans encore,” says M. Serres,* 
eloquently, “ font le fruit de la loi d’harmonie des parties. La- 
terre renfermedans son sein, les restes d’un monde primitif, 
submerge par le deluge. A la voix de M. Cuvier tous ces 
ossemens epars se rassemblent, tous ces fragmens mutiles se 
reunissent, et nous voyons une science nouvelle, et nous 
voyons un monde nouveau, sortir, pour ainsi dire, des en- 
trailles de la ter re.” 

“ An animal includes in its economy the idea of a definite 

design; each natural member is apart of this design, and 

* — 

the different members are the mutual interpreters of one 
another.” Through the law of harmony, which reigns over 
animal morphogeny , nature spoke to Cuvier. By the single 
bone of any creature, he was enabled to know the construc¬ 
tion of its entire organization, the kind of food, habits, wants, 
character, local habitation; and distinguish the race to which 
it belonged. Armed with this knowledge, he was enabled 
to point out from the debris contained in the strata of the 
earth’s explorable crust, the different orders of life; mark the 
distinctions clearly between those of the more ancient secon¬ 
dary formations, and of the ones still more recent; and pro¬ 
claim, from all antiquity, there have been gradual, and 
complete changes in the living forms, and a constant pro¬ 
gression of life. Each of the strata existed the surface, at 
different epochs, and belongs to a separate order of the world. 
The human fossils are only found in the top, or diluvial 
superfice; man, therefore, is a recent comer into our planet, 
and belongs to the last order. 

The existing continents were the floors of the primitive 
oceans, and the bottoms of our seas, the continents, on which 
the Antediluvians perished.f Hence their bones have never 
been found. Lower in different beds, the remains of the 
Rodentia, Paleotheria,the enormous Pachydermata, Ichthyo¬ 
sauri, Edentata, Ophidia, rest upon the ruins of purely Nep- 
tunean life. Still lower in much more distant epochs, all 

* Analomie compare du cerveau et cet.—tome 1. p. 22. 
t Revolutions supra citat. 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


63 


vestiges of life on land disappear, and show in the first an¬ 
nals, aquatic vitality long held universal possession and 
sway. 

Here, then, is a thread of light, connecting the first and the 
last moment of time together. And here is the muddy cra¬ 
dle of chaos, the rerum exordium; the beginning of history. 

Each of the terrestrial strata is an ample theatre, where 
the crowded population of animated existence, ran on in the 
torrent of ages, until the seas quitting their ancient beds, 
and taking possession of the dry land, stopped their career; 
and made room for the introduction of new lives with new 
forms. 

The history of our planet is the history of rebellious forces, 
—of revolutions, convulsions, catastrophes, overthrows. Our 
author, by the light he had kindled, was enabled, with 
tolerable certainty, to assign the order to these revolutions, 
and trace through the varied phases of organization the pro¬ 
gress of life. 

When we consider how much of our positive knowledge 
depends upon the senses, and with what rapidity death breaks 
the thread of experienced observation, we should learn to 
doubt as well as believe. And when we remember that all 
history is of recent date; its furthest extremity covered in 
the night of fable; the few truths it contains, colored with 
the passions, genius of those who composed it, our doubts 
may increase. 

Nature’s work was done, her story told, before we were 
the spectators. The necessary connections and relations of 
things are the only tongues she has left, to tell fis of her his¬ 
tory. In the living forms, these relations are numerous, 
definite and communicative; every single structure preserved, 
so many rays of light bursting out from antiquity, up through 
the earth, which covers them. And although by our thought, 
we cannot dart into the vortex of eternal darkness, down 
which all her years have plunged with their deeds, and 
bring them up to the living light, yet from her many voices, 
—from the flambeaux she has left burning, as so many light- 


64 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


houses, standing lonely in the horizons of her ruined empires ; 
—from her innumerable organic remains, as so many ruined 
stars, beaming mournfully upon us from afar,—we can judge 
pretty precisely of the labors she has undergone, and of 
her travelled course,— 

Uti magnum per inane coacta, 

as sung the great bard of antiquity, whom sea-frowning 
Rhodope and Ismarus loved, 

Semina, terrarumque, animaeque, marisque fuissent, 

Et liquidi simul ignis: ut liis exordia primis 
Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis. 

Turn durare solum, et discludere Nerea Ponto 
Coeperit, et rerum paulatim sumere formas. 

Jamque novum utterrse stupeant lucescere solem, 

Altius atque cadant submotis nubibus imbres:*— 

Changes of internal structure; the bitumenization of 
extinct genera and species of vegetables; situation of the 
Coal Measures; the fossilized Testacea and other relics of 
Oceanic life, comprising the mountain limestone ; the huge 
Saurian and Ophidian tribes, the Ichthyosauri , Plesiosauri , 
Megalosauri , other amphibia; and those of the Mastodon 

V * V 

* Bucolica 6, Virgil. 

t Bones of most enormous size have been recently discovered in the 
plains of Florida. They lie just beneath the surface, some of which have 
been exposed by the washing of torrents and rain-water. The author has 
seen only a single dorsal vertebra. The processes were completely destroyed; 
and the alveolar texture much developed by the loss of substance. The bone 
otherwise was entire, the articulating surfaces distinctly visible. My inform¬ 
ant says, “ in t|je country they are called old grindstones,” from their resem¬ 
blance, I suppose. 

This vertebra, when new, must have been some ten inches in diameter, and 
the race of animals to which it belongs, must have become completely ex¬ 
tinct, when the diluvian stratum or surface was formed, in which its remains 
are found. No doubt the fossils of other species will be discovered, when 
the country shall have been more used and explored. 

Those who have regarded Florida as recently formed in the lap of Nereus, 
by the action of the Gulf Stream, or coral of life, would change their opinion 
on examination of the actual features of the country. In formation it mani¬ 
fests to be of the same age with Atlantic Georgia to the colline range of 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


65 


the Palaeotherium , Anoplotheriiim , Megatherium , and others, 
struck completely from the living economy, and buried in 

the country. And these huge bones may be looked upon as the tombstones 
of an ancient world or order of nature, which has long since ceased to exist. 

Their great size forbids they should have been the relics of any of the 
known species of the Edentata. It is more probable they belong to some of 
the extinct Proboscindiana of Cuvier;—the Mastodon giganteus, M. angus- 
tidens ; or some other unknown, huge species of the pachydermatous 
family. 

Human remains of probably great antiquity, and likewise works of hu¬ 
man art, which bear no resemblance to those of the aboriginal people, have 
also been lately discovered in Florida. Col. T. Bailey, a very intelligent 
gentleman, who resided in that country, says, a monument built of durable 
materials and in a good state of preservation, stands in a vast plain, round 
which, at considerable distance, the ground has been levelled and made per¬ 
fectly smooth. Nothing indicates it to have been constructed for defence against 
an enemy, or to contain anything military in its original design. It was most 
probably constructed to perpetuate the recollection, when some colony arrived, 
and took possession of the country. The oldest Indian traditions know 
nothing of its origin. 

About one mile south of this ancient monument, flows a clear beautiful 
stream, continues the Col. A party fishing in this stream, the figure of a 
man was discovered, lying in about four feet water, below a shoal. It was 
raised up and found to be part of a human skeleton, in a state of perfect petri¬ 
faction. The parts wanting were the arms and lower extremities. The 
whole body, neck and head, the ossa innominata attached firmly to the spine, 
remained in one entire piece, and perfect in all their parts to the life. No 
skeleton prepared by art, could look more natural, except the substance was 
a smooth, yellowish rock. Petrifactions of no other substances were noticed. 

If this human petrifaction were launched into the geological world, no 
doubt, it would become the rival of the celebrated one of Gaudaloupe, and pro¬ 
voke much speculation. The race to which it belongs,, and the authors of 
this monument, might be reduced to greater probability. Historians speak 
of foreign people having visited our shores before Columbus. The Honor¬ 
able S. Grantland presented me a copper coin, lately dug up on his plantation, 
Lee Co., Georgia, not distant from the site of this Florida monument, which 
from the situation in which it was found, must have been there for centuries. 
The words Pater-Maria- Av., were plainly legible on its face. The date was 
corroded, the number 14 was visible, and some armorials. It appeared of 
great age—and evidently Spanish. 

I have just learned, bones much larger than common, and of unusual ap¬ 
pearance, have been dug up in the Brunswick canal now in progress. They 
probably are of some of the lost races of the Edentata. 

6 


66 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


the Lias , Oolite, green sand stone , and other higher, more 
recent formations; demand, in our modern geognosy, a long 
preadamic epoch for the maturescent world. 

Since all animation demands certain conditions or con¬ 
stitutions of matter, among which are heat, light, moisture, 
and vegetables require fewer of these than animals, the 
essential nature of things does not contradict this idea of 
maturescence , nor is it discountenanced by the Mosaic nar¬ 
ration. 

SECTION III. 

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF LIFE. 

Light was the first finished form of nature. After the cre¬ 
ation of sea and land, on the third day, the earth brought forth 
grass, herbs, and fruit trees; the simplest forms of vitality, 
which required the fewest modifications of the chaotic matter 
for maintenance, breathing the humid firmament, and sub¬ 
sisting on heat and light, not yet concentrated, or fashioned 
into astronomical form.—For the first three days of time, 
having transpired before the existence or revolution of any 
planet, differed from all other days since. 

It is said on this day, of which the evening and morning 
were the third, “the earth brought forth grass , and herb 
yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit” We know not 
the duration, this process of vegetation consumed, only that 
the morning and evening of it, constituted the day. 

The celestial bodies were placed in the sky, and our 
astrarchy organized on the fourth day. Time already com¬ 
menced, now received for its duration a measure, making it 
intelligible. Fourth day! brilliant epoch of the rising world! 
riches, incomprehensible fulness, glory of creative power!* 

* In contemplating this power man always betrays his weakness. The idea 
of creation is above the mould of mortal thought. It is the conception of 
production without materials,—perfectly inconceivable. Thus Whiston, New 
Theo. of the Earth, p. 69, imagined the atmosphere of a Comet was the 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


67 


—the explosive streams of the sun’s broad light, chasing 
away the natural darkness, that blackened the faces of the 
planets, each becoming the mirror of his loveliness and 
beauty!! 

The radiant light traversing the atmosphere, falling on 
continents and seas elevating their temperature, excited at 
once, all nature’s active forces. Now she had strength to 
hold all her parts together and progress forward; and now 
commenced her busy hour, the hour which ushered into 
being the economy of Neptunean life. Her Creator said, 
“ Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature 
that hath life; and fowl,* that may fly above the earth”— 
“And God created great whales, and every creature, that 
moveth; which the waters brought forth abundantly after 
their kind.” 

Man and the terrestrial animals were reserved for the sixth 
day, on which the whole living economy was completed; 
and received finally the divine benediction, “ Be fruitful and 
multiply.” 

In proportion, therefore, as the several constitutions of 

primordial state of the earth; material of the Divine Architect; BufFon and 
others, a primeval sun ; all antiquity, a Chaos. It is the type of human pro¬ 
duction, after which has been fashioned, the Divine. 

* The waters or the sea is here represented as bringing' forth the feathered 
races as well as those of the fishes, or rather that God created them in the 
depths of the sea, which brought them forth. 

Since light and caloric were created, we may suppose the temperature of 
the incipient earth, was that of inconceivable coldness. And since water is a 
much better conductor of heat than land, the seas would become warm much 
sooner than the continents, and, consequently, much earlier fitted to become 
the matrix and support of vitality. Accordingly, we see the sea-life preceded 
by one day, whatever may have been its duration, that of land animals. 

Proceeding upon this principle of water being a superior conductor of heat, 
and assuming the first continents to have been small islands, Whitehurst, In¬ 
quiry, &c., was enabled to bestow a delightful climate upon every ancient 
country of the world. 

It was probably from a tradition founded on this sacred passage, that the 
Brachmans of India, the early sages of Persia, Egypt,—taught that all ani¬ 
mated existence originally sprung from heat and water, as Diodorus Siculus, 
Opera , who recites all ancient opinions, and other early writers, testily. 


68 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


matter, in the progress of the system to maturity, were evol¬ 
ved, accommodated to the sustentation of the various orders 
of the living economy, these orders were successively created. 

First sprung up, for we must suppose the earth was 
created with a nutritive, arboriferous soil, the Confervse, 
Cryptogames, Gramina Cereal, Floral, the fruit-bearing trees 
—the Monocotyledons—all the phytological races. Next 
came in order on the fifth day, the prodigious aquatic life— 
the leviathan, great whales and fishes,—the ophidian, as we 
may suppose, Saurian, Ichthyosaurian tribes, Ornithoce- 
phali, other monstrous shapes,* outstripping ancient fancy, 
belluce biformes , combining in their make of soaring wings 
the head of the crocodile, and claws of the lion; and likewise 
the plumy races. 

The earth was covered with branching trees, shrubs, 
flowers, green savannas; fish sported in the waves, birds 
soared in the air, before man and the more perfect animals 
existed. There was a progressive creation of life from the 
most simple to the most complex and perfect forms. 

If we were to imagine the waves of the first seas, break¬ 
ing over the land, washing up and driving before them this 
vegetation of the primitive earth, which collected in masses, 
would sink to the bottom, become covered, imbedded by the 
sedimentary settlings, and bitumenized by the action of the 
saline and earthy matters contained in sea-water, we could 
form some idea of the formation of the coal measures. The 
remains of the testacea, sponges, madrepores and other lithi- 
ferous creatures, abandoned by the sea, would become 
chiefly decomposed in time. If the surfaces on which they 
rested, were upheaved by an internal movement, they would 
give origin to formations, similar to the mountain lime-stone, 
the ammonitic, belemnitic and others. And this vegetation 
of the first earth, would stand in the same relation to these 
coal measures, as the testacea, sponges,—to these formations. 

Heavy shades, darkness hang round these subterraneous 
data, ruins of ancient life, and the state of the world to which 

* Vid. Prof. Buckland’s Geology. 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


69 


they point, which have excited so much interest, and en¬ 
grossed so much attention of modern philosophers. All 
show that the different parts of the material economy, have 
sustentative relations with the life nature nourishes; that 
changes in the earth’s surface, are marked by corresponding 
changes in her organic kingdom; and, that in her whole 
course, she has progressed through continual revolutions, 
and enjoyed no repose. 

In her first state, we behold simple matter existing sine 
corpore ,* for the “ earth was void ” a chaos, the mundorum 
rudimenta informia. Here in the first struggle, no life 
cheered the dark waste of shoreless waters. It was the 
struggle of brute matter alone. After orbless light existed, 
and the earth had received her double shape of sea and 
land, it commenced in its most simple state; radiated as I 
may say, from a single point, but did not reach its most 
noble and perfect forms, until after the full completion of 
the material economy. 

Nature, we may say, labored, accomplished much, before 
she completely evolved and brought forth her great system 
of life. Warm day-light fell on every land; seas rolled on 
every shore; stars wandered everywhere in the abyss of 

* In the primeval state, the terrestrial matter enjoyed none of the cosmic 
forms and properties ;—“was void” The moderns have entirely lost sight 
of the distinction between matter and its forms or the vhy and EtSos so care¬ 
fully observed by all the ancient sages. The v^rj was the matter or materia], 
and the EtSoj, the form bestowed upon it by Divine or human art. 

n^w tov ^tv E t 5oj a £iov says Euripides. The Supreme Cause 

was EtSoj Et5toy. 

Pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse 

Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans. 

This distinction between matter and its forms, making them separate things, 
appears to be warranted by the sacred historian. Yet we can have no more 
idea of matter without form, or in the non-corporeal state, than we can have 
of life and intelligence without organization. 

We may conceive it is by virtue of its forms, which it received from the 
second effort of creative Power, that matter enjoys all its attractions, active 
properties, as it is by organization that life and intelligence have their active 
being. Yid. Harris’ Hermes, for this distinction of matter and form, p. 308. 

6 * 


70 


SYSTEM OF MATTER. 


space; before the blood started in living arteries, the pas¬ 
sions heaved the bosom, new-born thought painted the fea¬ 
tures, or through volition, impressed new motion on earth’s 
slugglish clay. 

From these facts, data, we may deduce several very im¬ 
portant conclusions. They are natural commentaries on the 
philosophy of life.—1. That matter, in the state in which 
it was first created, could offer, exert no influence upon life: 
2. That it was through the changes it underwent in its ela¬ 
boration into its system, it acquired these influences: 3. 
That the vital movements are not excited, sustained by the 
individual, but by the joint forces of the whole system of 
matter. 

And it is only matter in definite forms, balanced, playing 
in ceaseless attraction; matter exciting movements in its 
fellow forms, and in its turn receiving excitement;—matter 
that enjoys life and reciprocates it in its own system ,—rvhich 
can stimulate life in organic systems: And it is only matter, 
that plays in concentric circles, sets out and returns periodi¬ 
cally to the same starting points, that can stimulate life, 
which has its infancy, culminating point, and old age—life 
mortal. This is the matter of which we speak, whose noble, 
beautiful forms impel, through all ages, the vital economy. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE VITAL ECONOMY. 

How infinite, incomprehensible is life! In the animal¬ 
cule and confervse of its descending scale, it passes below 
our vision; in the elephant, the mountain oak, we behold 
the opposite extremes. The microscopies live in the roscid 
drop, and play in its vasty billows; the whale, in size, matches 
the ocean where he swims. 



VITAL ECONOMY-IDEA OF LIFE. 


71 


Contemplated in relation to time, it equally surpasses our 
comprehension, and mocks the ambitious flight of our science. 
In its ruins, it appears to have formed largely the earth’s 
solid crust. The vestiges of its ancient forms preserved in 
this crust, as we have seen, show that all its early models 
have become obsolete; long since ceased to constitute any 
part in its economy; that it progresses through a perpetual 
metamorphosis of these forms. Mystery, darkness hang 
round on every side. 

SECTION I. 

IDEA-THEORY-OF LIFE. 

The most general conception of all animation, is that of a 
special modification of the great action of the solar economy. 
This modification is achieved by organization; organization, 
by a special, created substantive force, which varies in every 
individual genus of the great living series; but accomplishes 
more or less perfectly, the same end in all. Organization, 
therefore, is the only mode of vital manifestation for the 
whole economy. It is both the immediate measurer and 
modifier of all vitality. 

The earth original , presents three great divisions or three 
great chambers, to lodge all the living families—the atmo¬ 
sphere, land and sea. To each of these there are many pro¬ 
perties, qualities—things peculiar. 

1. The direction, tendency impressed on the organizing 
force; or first law of organization is, to furnish, evolve 
structures to meet, accommodate these peculiarities of the 
inhabitable chambers. 

If it be the sea; the osseous system, if it exist in the crea¬ 
ture contemplated, the muscular, nervous, all the organic 
apparatuses, will have a make and conformation in relation 
to the physical properties, qualities, &c., of water; and be 
more or less peculiar. There will be branchise, fins.—If 
it be the land; all the types of the organs will vary, new 


72 


VITAL ECONOMY—IDEA OF LIFE. 


ones be added, and present to surrounding objects, new 
relations, new points of contact, new modes of intercourse. 
Instead of branchiae there will be lungs; feet to support the 
body.—If the creature be destined to fly in the atmosphere, 
the whole organism will present peculiar relations, adapta¬ 
tions to this element. Instead of fins there will be wings, 
in place of scales, feathers.—There are some privileged 
creatures of mixed structures, the amphibia. 

By the operation of this first law, each member of the 
organic kingdom, has its nativity or proper inhabiting ele¬ 
ment assigned to it—its being defined, circumscribed, located: 
so that the individual structures or parts of each, as I have 
had occasion before to observe, will bear testimony respect¬ 
ively;—or are consignificative of the material habitudes of 
the natural places of their existence. If you interrogate 
them, they will point to the atmosphere, land or sea. 

2. Another law or tendency of the organic force is, to 
fabricate structures in animated existences, in relation to 
one another. These relations are those of offence, defence, 
sexes;—subserve in part individual conservation, and that 
of the species. 

3. This force evolves organs, strictly likewise, in relation 
to the aliment aria. 

4. It elaborates special structures in relation to some par¬ 
ticular forms of the terrestrial matter only;—as the subder- 
mic, nervous tissue, the immediate seat of all the senses 
with their auxiliary apparatuses, except the eye, in relation 
to the imponderable agents or the immediate cause of touch, 
to odours, atmospheric undulations. 

5. The organic force unfolds organs in living bodies, in 
relation to other worlds, as the eye. The medullary struc¬ 
ture of both plants and animals, is the immediate seat of 
innumerable stimulations from solar light and heat. And 
all living bodies respond to the energy, which causes the 
planetary movements. 

The first class of organs, which accommodate, fit the liv¬ 
ing being to the inhabiting chamber or natural abode, are 


VITAL ECONOMY-IDEA OF LIFE. 


73 


always connected with a general conformation of the entire 
structure. Or rather, it is these specific organs with this 
general conformation that constitute the naturalness or the 
nativities, which necessitate and give origin to innumerable 
varieties in the living contours;—as an acuminated form 
to plow the waves, branch Lae, air-bladders, in fishes; skin, 
hair, feathers, in other creatures to modify temperature, 
mechanical contact of external bodies,—feet, hands, lungs, 
wings. 

The organs of the second class relate to the economy 
itself, and unite its different members. 

Those of the third look externally. Food modifies also 
prodigiously the living forms;—as the mouth, teeth, assi¬ 
milating organs, nostrils, neck, feet, cartilaginous nose of the 
domestic hog; distensible skin of the rhinoceros; probos¬ 
cis; ligamentum nuchce of the ruminantia , &c. 

The structures of the fourth and fifth classes, modify prin¬ 
cipally the action of the universal forces of nature; and con¬ 
nect all living existences closely with the great solar move¬ 
ment. Every separate structure, therefore, of any animated 
being, combines in its action, either to modify the chemical 
habitudes of matter, or its general forces; and thereby 
achieves a definite and useful end in its own economy. 

According to this view r of the last elements, to which we 
can reduce vitality, all living tissues can only have sense 
and meaning in the different substances, habitudes or states 
of the terrestrial matter and those of its system. Each 
member of the animated series, through its numerous organs, 
receives the varied impressions the forces of this system 
are calculated to excite, and lives,—lives in the great dyna¬ 
mical movement of the whole. 

A frozen sun, planets without motion in space, and life 
progress with all its busy forces—sensations, wants, volition, 
locomotion;—would not only be unphysical, contradictory, 
but the membra disjecta of things. Were there no sun 
shedding his warm, radiant beams; no atmosphere, water, 
fiow T ers, fruits exhaling sweet odors,—to what end in the 


74 VITAL ECONOMY-PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION. 

universe would look, tend the eyes, ears, noses,—different, 
special organs, with which nature has fitted up the living 
races? They would be alone by themselves,—useless— 
unmeaning—a burlesque to the balance of things. But so 
far to the contrary of this, she appears to have copied all the 
beautiful forms of her lives from the earth, and the stars, that 
burn in space. 

The more scientific organology advances, the more nu¬ 
merous, we may suspect, will appear those vivo-material 
correlations. Should science ever reach perfection, each 
member of the great living family, to some extent or in some 
sort, will be regarded as a syllabus of the vast system, body 
forms in space; and afford another demonstration of the uni¬ 
versal unity, harmony of all created natures. 

We may be confirmed in the general truth of these ele¬ 
mentary views of animality, from the fact, that it is only 
through the organization of the solar matter radiating in 
space, and that of the earth alive in its own system, there is 
life. And we may suppose if a portion of matter foreign 
and distinct from this system, were organized into one of 
our plants or animals, and placed on our planet or some 
other, it could not live or exist a moment, because it would 
not enjoy the general animating forces. The special laws, 
energies, therefore, which preside over the formation and 
conservation of organic bodies, exist in close union in nature, 
with those, which impel to, and maintain the great solar 
action. 

SECTION II. 

i * 

PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION OF LIFE IN THE LIVING SERIES. 

Two circumstances appear to modify and constitute the 
perfection of every living being.—1. The greater or less 
number of rouages or impulsive points of contact, which 
connect it with the cosmic movement: 2, the greater or less 
means, it possesses, in its own economy, of rallying and 
concentrating the impressions or influences thus received. 


VITAL ECONOMY—PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION. 75 

Did the lobster have as bright an eye; winnow with 
capacious lungs as much vital fire from the atmosphere; 
enjoy as exquisite sensibility; its mind, like Newton’s, could 
not expand all over nature, ride on the wing of deductive 
thought generating science. In the one case, the impres¬ 
sions through the action of sensibility, would be received; 
but there would be wanting a suitable brain to concentrate 
and give them a further elaboration; and a mind in equi¬ 
librium, to transform them into perceptions: In the other, 
these impressions would have a progressive movement. 
Concentrated in the common sensory, their relations, pro¬ 
portions would be appreciated, judged ; they would be sepa¬ 
rated, united, pass to the form of truth, science. 

The separate organs of any animated being, may be 
regarded as the surfaces, by which it is articulated with its 
world. The fewer these, the more feeble, imperfect will be 
the reaction upon the universal forces; the more simple the 
life; and the more it will resemble that of anorganic matter. 
And, vice versa , the more complicated the general structure, 
the more closely it is connected in dependence by the organs 
circulating the repairing materials, by the centralizing ner¬ 
vous tissue on wdiich all the forces of nature act at once, the 
more exalted, perfect will be the life. In a word, the measure 
of organization is the true measure of vitality. The organiz¬ 
ing force of all lives, which continues constantly active till 
death, in its organizing acts, disturbs the equilibrium—offers 
to the external, material movements modifications, which 
are the true vital phenomena. Thus a stimulation is only 
such a movement felt and reciprocated; a sensation, the 
same or a different one perceived. And in proportion as 
these modifications are more or less complicated and com¬ 
plete, so is the life. 

There are some few conditions common to all animated 
existences, the base of all their functions. They all modify 
the chemical properties of the atmosphere or respire;—are 
nourished; reproduced;—possess innate principles of motion 
and sensation. These principles, through which their world 


76 VITAL ECONOMY—PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION. 

impresses all its support, influences; through which they 
hold intercourse with it and themselves, constitute the 
essence of their being. Consequently they must all have 
organs analogous to supply these functions; and are but 
one with various degrees of perfection, in the physical order 
of the universe. “La motilitie vitale nous oftre,” says M. 
Dutrochet, “ches tous les etres vivants, les memes pheno- 
menes principaux. Partout il y a nervimolilitie , et par con¬ 
sequent nervimotion sous l’influence des agents nervimoteurs; 
partout aussi il y a locomotilitie ou faculte de changer la 
position des parties. Les vegetaux offrent, comme les ani- 
maux, ces deux facultes de movement; mais elles sont, ches 
eux, bien moins energiques, bien moins developpees.”* 
This vital motility , present in each molecule of all living 
bodies, varies, in energy, throughout the animated scale. 

To begin at the foot of the inverted pyramid, the image 
of life, the vegetable families manifest it in the feeblest 
degree; and present correspondingly the greatest simplicity 
of organization. Their rudimental medulla, for, in the 
paucity of all other structures, we cannot conceive of life in 
the absence of this, primary seat of this precious , motile 
power , seems just sufficient to enable them to receive nutri¬ 
tion, convert it into their own proper substance—serves 
simply for reproduction, growth and decay. Almost isolated, 
cut off* from the great action without, all their efforts exhaust, 
and terminate in themselves. Their medulla, too scanty, 
falls short of reaching intellectual and moral life.f From 
the abundance and diversity, how T ever, of the phenomena of 
vegetable animation, we must suppose it is exalted very 
greatly above the chemical action of mineral bodies. J And 

* Recherches anat. et physiol, sur la struct. &c., des anim., et cet. p. 5. 

t Dr. Darwin attributed to plants sense and moral feeling; to some even, 
a rapacious, carnivorous appetite. Listening to the voice of the Muses, 
enjoying their sweet intercourse, he threw over flowers, some of the light of 
their inspiration. Vid. Botanic G'arden. 

t The ideas of a living Creator and a dead creation are incompatible. 


VITAL ECONOMY—PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION. 77 

the chasm, which exists between this action and vegetable 
life, must be infinitely wider than that between the two 
lives of vegetables and the Racliata. 

Contrarily to the order of vegetables, the medullary glo¬ 
bules or threads, when they are visible, are disposed in 
these Radiata with the organs of sense and motion, about a 
central axis. This arrangement satisfies the conditions of 
sensibility and voluntary movements—the first forms of 
desire, perception, thought. The phenomena of their being 
extend beyond themselves in a limited circle; and they feel 
more of the universal forces without. Containing more of 
the elements of animation, they form the union between 
plants and animals, and participate in the lives of both. 
They organize more of the chemical elements, than plants 
commonly do; or are quarternary compounds. Life, there¬ 
fore, reaching rudimental animality, takes in, at once, all 
the varieties of the organifiable elements of its most com¬ 
plete and perfect forms. Consequently its progressive per¬ 
fection does not depend so much upon the number and 
diversity of these elements, as upon the completeness of the 
organs themselves, and their central conformation. 

In the Articulata , the brain, seated on the oesophagus, fur¬ 
nishes nerves to the parts, which belong to the head. Two 
nervous cords embracing the oesophagus, extend along the 
abdomen, unite at certain distances and form ganglia, from 
which arise the nerves that supply the body and extremi¬ 
ties. 

Here the distinct organs are more multiplied,, and more 
complicated in their articulations. And here we behold the 
first distinct beginnings of that centralization of organs, and 
circular, vital movement, so complete in all the more perfect 
races. 

The nervous system of the Molusca, contained in the same 

envelope as the viscera, is formed of masses connected by 

% 

Death is only action suspended, or change of form. Wherever there is 
being, there is motion: all live in their own manner. The life by organiza¬ 
tion is only life special, pre-eminent. 

7 


78 


VITAL ECONOMY—PROGRESSIVE PERFECTION. 


nervous filaments. They have the organs of taste and sight, 
a complex digestive and secretory apparatus, a perfect sys¬ 
tem of circulation, and particular, respiratory organs. 

Accordingly they present more points of contact, more 
numerous relations with external bodies, modify more the 
great action without; and in proportion, their vitality ex¬ 
pands rapidly into a still wider circle. To the perfectness 
of their distinct, pulmonary and sanguiferous organs, con¬ 
veying promptly to their nervous system atmospheric oxy¬ 
gen so indispensable to all living motion and perception, is 
greatly due their vital superiority. In them we observe the 
obscure dawnings of the mental and social life; and the 
germ of those sensibilities, which in the more perfect verte- 
brata ,* articulate their wants in the voice of thunder. 

A body composed of double organs, divisible into two 
symmetrical halves; a multiform, nutritive apparatus for the 
generation of blood; a blood rich and abundant in closed 
vessels; a complex, sanguiferous mechanism, which compels 
the whole of this blood to pass through the lungs at each 
revolution; the lungs capacious; the means of excretion 
and secretion, varied, abundant; a brain voluminous and 
complicated with the spinal marrow extending through the 
longitudinal axis of the body, and the nerves freely distri¬ 
buted to every part; a skin, warm, smoothf and pliable, the 

* After all the improvements proposed, rejected, adopted, nothing is more 
arbitrary than zoological classifications. The distinguishing features of ani¬ 
mals fade away, pass gradually into one another. Nature originating them, 
I may say, did not consult the convenience of philosophers, who study them. 
Their distinctions to be true, must, for the most part, be understood in a very 
general manner. Yet classification is indispensable to accommodate the 
weakness of our faculties. 

t From the very fact that man is born naked , we should conclude, a priori , 
he was born to think and feel —to enjoy exquisite intercourse with nature,— 
participate fully in the great action of his world. But to suppose the hair, 
feathers, scales, shells and bony substances, with which other creatures are 
covered, and isolated from external contact, diminish the impetuosity of 
their feelings or sensations, is unphilosophic. For it is certain the nervous 
tissue bears relations and proportions with each organic part of every living 
individual, which, consequently must put their cutaneous sensibility in har¬ 
mony with the velamina , by which they are enveloped. 


VITAL ECONOMY-INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES DIFFER. 79 

medullary globules forming a tissue everywhere beneath it; 
the faces of all the organs looking centrally—present us the 
idea of the most perfect model, the organizing force has 
reached in our world. It is the idea of organic man. 

Here altogether different from the Racliata , but less differ¬ 
ent from the Articuiata , and still less from the Molusca, 

* 

every thing is distinct and separate; an instrument for every 
action, or a particular organ for every particular function. 
The atmosphere is received neither by branchiae, traclieae or 
cutaneous imbibition, but is freely and voluminously admit¬ 
ted into the pulmonary cells for the arterialization of the 
revolving blood; all the organs exist in the strictest subordi¬ 
nation and reciprocal dependence; the vital movement is from 
the centre to the circumference, and vice versa , or circular, 
the great type of motion, wdrich prevails the most extensively 
in nature. 


SECTION III. 

VASTNESS OF THE ECONOMY-DISCREPANCY, RECIPROCAL RELATION OF 

ALL THE PARTS COMPOSING ANY ANIMATED BEING. 

From minuteness of the form; impossibility often of de¬ 
ciding upon the identity or difference of species; mutations 
by successive generation; locality; climate and other causes, 
it is impracticable to know the number or variety of lives 
the earth nourishes. The whole amount may be from ten 
to fifteen millions. Great, however, as must be the actual 
number of living species, in their structures and functions, 
so far as these will hold out in the low T er orders, they all pre¬ 
sent relations, points of contact with one another—are united, 
by close affinities. So that the simple notion of all anima¬ 
tion, as before intimated, is that of a greater or less combina¬ 
tion of organs, which coaptate in their general forms, and 
respond in their properties,—conditions of functions,—to 
external matter. The functions, therefore, so far as they 
will go, however much the organs may vary in number and 
form, must be identical, being the modifications of the physi- 


80 VITAL ECONOMY—INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES DIFFER. 


cal, material properties, (which continue the same,) by the 
vital or organic . This law of the universal identity of func¬ 
tions, of affiliation of structures in all living existences, holds 
so rigidly as to impress upon us the idea of a plan or system 
of original formation; of a solitary Contriver, Creator, and, 
in the great presence of visible things, or physical order, as 
I have said, constitutes them a unit in nature’s whole. 

What infinite diversities, contrarieties, compose this living 
unity! The types of the organs in one order of life, are 
changed in another; soon all the original types are lost, while 
the organs themselves still answer to the same functions. If 
the organs of the superior races of animals, as M. Serres has 
shown,* in reaching the perfect, permanent forms from the 
embryons, are metamorphosed or passed through the types 
of the inferior races; nature, as I may say, in getting from 
one creature to another of a different order, passes through 
an infinitely wider field of organic transmutations. Looking 
along the living line, we behold series on series of groups of 
organic structures; each composes a separate order of life. 
The group nearest us suffers considerable change in reaching 
the next; the types of the organs are altered, disappear; new 
ones take their place; .soon again they fade away, and are 
supplied by others still newer. Nothing in the whole length 
of this line is permanent, fixed, but the transitions, changes: 
—From simple atoms, which unite by vital attraction and 
live, as in the confervce, to man, who dare glance his Maker 
consciously in the face, these changes hold with the strict¬ 
ness of laws. 

* “ Les embryons ne sont done pas, ainsi q’on l’avait imagine, la miniature 
des animaux adultes. Avant d’arreter leurs formes permanentes, leurs organs 
traversent une multitude de formes fugitives, et de plus en plus simples, a 
measure q’on se rapproche davantage de leur point de depart. Ceque ces 
formes embryonaires ont de tres-remarquable dans les classes superieures, 
c’estqu elles repetent souventles formes permanentes des classes inferieures. 
Les classes inferieures sont expliquees de cette maniere par l’embryogenie 
des classes superieures, et les embryons des classes superieures repetent 
successivement les formes permanentes des classes inferieures.”—Anat. Com- 
paree du Cerveau, &c. Tome i. p. 15.—A work, which exhibits alike the 
abilities of its author, and the great national progress of thought in France. 


VITAL ECONOMY—INDIVIDUAL STRUCTURES DIFFER. 81 

In consequence of this continued change of the organic 
types, and the functions, where they exist, remaining always 
the same in all, of what tremendous import how many distinct 
sorts of things in nature mean head, brain, heart, stomach, 
neck, mouth, teeth, nose, legs, feet, &c. Feet, legs in the Anne - 
hdes , for instance, are simple folds of the skin or tubercles 
armed with setae; in the great mammifers, the elephant, they 
are huge columns of bones—of bony structures. In the Radi- 
ata , mouth chiefly is a pore in the skin; in the lion, croco¬ 
dile, a devouring sepulchre. How grand, majestic the march 
of nature, unfolding the living economy, the circle of vitality 
expanding, as she advances till man! And how noble, lofty 
the flight of MM. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, Dumeril, 
and such men, who pursue her footsteps, and look out her 
ways! 

But if the morphology varies in all, the particular struc¬ 
tures of any living body, differ as much from their fellow 
structures, as the body they help to compose, differs from any 
other of a distinct genus. What resemblance, for instance, 
is there between the brain, the enveloping membranes, and 
cranial covering; periostea, bones, liver, stomach, muscular 
fibre, cellular membrane, nerves?—Bichat,* with others, has 
made efforts to ascertain and fix the number of the primitive 
tissues or original anatomical elements which immediately 
compose the organs. Each of these organs, however few or 
many of these elements they may have for base, enjoys pe¬ 
culiar modifications of the organizing force, or possesses a 
sensibility and contractility, primary powers of all organo¬ 
geny, which is special. Consequently, each has a mode 
of animation and diseasation, which is likewise peculiar, 
but not independently of one another. All live in their own 
way, but live only by pouring the separate streams of their 
actions or lives together, forming the vital whole of the indi¬ 
vidual of which they are the organs. 

* General Anatomy. For a summary of these efforts, vide Physiologic de 
1’Homme par Adelon, tome i. 


7* 


82 


VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


SECTION IV. 

RECIPROCAL DEPENDENCE OF ALL THE PARTS OF THE ECONOMY- 

RELATIONS OF THE ORGANIFIABLE MATTER-ITS FIRST COMBINA¬ 

TION INTO THE LIVING FORMS. 

4 

t .\ 

If, in every living body, the peculiar life of each distinct 
organ, is dependent upon the general life of the whole and 
reciprocally, not less so are the lives of each one of the ani¬ 
mated series. No living being can hold, beyond a certain 
duration, the elements of its material composition, and these 
elements appear to be indefinitely reorganizable into new 
forms. Thus, in relation to time, the economy progresses by 
means derived from its own stores, carrying the principles of 
its motion in itself. An enormous amount of matter must be 
consumed every moment in the organizing process; and the 
forces at the superior extremity of the scale, seem limited in 
their operation principally to these bodies or elements, which 
have been subjected previously to the organic state at the 
other extremity. Or the vegetable is subordinate to the 
animal life, in elaborating the materials. The primary or- 
ganifiable elements of vegetables, from the hour of creation, 
appear to have been set apart, and constitute a sort of per¬ 
petual inheritance for the vital empire, which the flames of 
life, constantly burning, have never exhausted or consumed/ 
Progressive, perpetual life, therefore, necessitates perpe¬ 
tual death; and likewise, generations, ages. Every mem¬ 
ber of the economy enjoys life at the expense of what had 
previously lived; and, in its turn, is compelled to urge future 
life onward in the shape of food. The constant, inflexible 
order of nature, is Fasti estis , pascendi; cibaria extemplo 
sumite, quippe cibaria eritis , which all obey. The indivi¬ 
dual forms and lives are lost; the organizability or suscep¬ 
tibility of organization of the debris remains indestructible 
—condition of new forms and lives. 

What variety and proportion of terrestrial bodies may be 


VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


83 


susceptible of the organic state, we may suppose to be inde¬ 
terminable. From the modern researches of vital chemistry, 
whose positive knowledge will probably ever remain ex¬ 
tremely limited, we are assured the variety is considerable. 
We are not, however, to suppose it has determined all, which 
nature has subjected to the action of life; and drawn the line 
of distinction between those that can live, and those which 
play off their attractions for ever in the state purely mineral. 

Indeed it would appear, the organizing force or attraction 
has the marvellous power of forming compound bodies in 
the absence of their proper chemical bases. Spallanzani 
and others fed poultry on substances, which contained no 
lime, and yet their eggs had shells like others. If this force 
can revolutionize, transform the elementary chemical bases, 
the decomposition of organic substances, to ascertain the 
primitive elements of their constitutions, is fallacious. 

Be this as it may, the greatest part of the visible earth is 
withdrawn completely from the organic empire. Deep in 
its entrails, beyond the contact of its atmosphere, there can 
be no life. On its surface vast deserts of loose, siliceous 
sand, roll amid the flames of the equatorial sun, which has 
never submitted, or been moulded to living shape. In the 
cacuminal range of all countries, everywhere, a large por¬ 
tion of this surface at a period when there was but little life 
—in the infancy of the planet—appears to have been seized 
by the chemical forces, and crystallized into the lapideous 
forms, which have remained till now undecomposed, and have 
never nourished plants, and through plants, animals. These 
rocks, of which the earth is full, bear no traces of the living 
structures. Time appears to have no power over them; 
they are truly indestructible. The rocks about Tenedos 
and other places, so accurately described by Homer, modern 
travellers assure us, correspond still to his description—are 
the same, as in the flourishing days of Troy—before all na¬ 
tions. 

While, therefore, all bodies are equally alike subjected to 
the molicular attractions, we may conclude, there is only a 


84 


VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


limited number susceptible of the organic state. Oxygen, 
hydrogen, carbon and azote or nitrogen, appear to play up 
to, and yield most easily to the vital attraction. All organic 
bodies yield them, more or less, as their last bases; and all 
soluble, decomposible substances, containing them are nutri¬ 
tive. They appear essentially to be the iritaliferous elements . 
All non-organizable bodies stimulate, exert a constant influ¬ 
ence on the vital functions. The balance between the two, 
we may suppose, is maintained in nature by an unknown 
law; and life is measured out in just proportions. 

Since the debris of all living bodies, is capable of spontane¬ 
ous combustion; and an impetuous fury urges all creatures 
to reproduction, were these bodies allowed an unlimited 
augmentation, or an increase in disproportion, it is evident 
the economy would suffer. There is then likewise an equi¬ 
poise maintained in the organizable matter itself; between 
that portion, which lives at any given time, and that which 
exists simply as chemical elements or debris. 

M. Chaptal regarded the whole, solid crust of the earth 
as having been formed by organic debris;—or that, in the 
progress of ages, it acquired its solidity from the living 
ruins. But to adopt this view, to the full extent, would be 
to admit, that all bodies have been indifferently, or are 
equally organizable. We behold only the surface, the great, 
active exclusive theatre of life; and the remains of its ruined 
forms, are not found beyond a given depth beneath. 

The organizable elements do not present the same rela¬ 
tions to the whole living economy. The vegetable kingdom 
is the door of entrance to the animal. The herbivora could 
not be subsisted by the juices, which nourish the plants, 
they crop for food; nor could the carnivorous races, which 
make them their prey, live on the plants that nourish them. 
Passed from the vegetable to the animal tissues, these ele¬ 
ments traverse different routes, in getting back to the mine¬ 
ral state. They are constantly thrown out by the excretory 
functions; are transferred by re-assimilation from one body 


VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


85 


to another; or the animal dying, and not devoured, return 
again to become the food of vegetables, and commence a 
new revolution. 

Thus every part of the economy is reciprocally dependent 
upon every other part; and, thus these elements, in travers¬ 
ing the varied streams life pours along time, receive from it 
a double stroke, before they are freed by death. Where the 
prowling wolf deposits his dust, the grass grows luxuriantly, 
a feast for the lambs he devours; where the huge mastodon, 
destroyer of leafy fields, lays him down the last time, the 
plants he consumes, rise up again in vigorous growth, 
drinking back life from his ruins. 

Naturally immortal, death has no power over the viable 
elements. It simply frees them from the vital attraction; is 
the pivot round w 7 hich they wheel in the eternal circle of 
action. They belong properly to no particular form of life; 
but are the disinterested, public functionaries of the general 
life of the economy. 

Indifferent alike to all living shapes, they manifest no 
power, tendency spontaneously to organescence. They com¬ 
bine only in living bodies, according to the laws, I have 
mentioned, under the action of the vital principle, peculiar 
in all the different orders. 

The old doctrine, then, the mother-idea of which was 
born in the school of Democritus, the great teacher of the 
atomic physiology,—“ That all living creatures sprung, at 
first, in the vermiform shape from molicular union, and in 
progressive time, reached their present forms,” has no sup¬ 
port in experience, history :—A doctrine round which the 
Muses have flung their gaudiest dress,* and philosophy 

* Terra cibum pueris, vestem vapor, herba cubile 
Praebebat multa et molli lanugine abnndans. 

At novitas mundi nec frigora dura ciebat, 

Nec nernios aestus, nec magnis viribus auras. 

Omnia enirn pariter crescunt, et robora sumunt, 

Quare etiam atque etiarn maternum nomen adepta, 

Terra tenet merito, quoniam genus ipsa creavit 
Bumanum, atque animal prope certo tempore fudit 


86 


VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


poured the full strength of its reason and eloquence:—A 
doctrine, which has been kept alive all ages; countenanced 
by a few honest men in modern times;* and strenuously 
urged by some Penseurs pliilosophiqites of Franee and Ger¬ 
many, for no other purpose than to dispossess us of the 
charm of a conscious superintending Deity, Creator. For¬ 
lorn ! such an idea had ever afflicted the human bosom; and 
caused so much magnificent labor to extinguish it in the 
world, itself the world's supreme beauty and ornament; 
when too of all natures, humanity most needs the sense, use 
of such a Being. 

Omne, quod in magnis baechatur montibu’ passim 
Aeriasque simul volucreis variantibu’ formis. 

-Nunc quae causa Deum per magnas Numina genteis 

Pervolgarit, et ararum compleverit urbeis, 

Suscipiendaque curarit sollennia sacra, 

Quae nunc in magnis florent sacra rebu’ locisque 
Unde etiam nunc est mortalibus insitiis horror, 

Qui delubra Deum nova toto suscitat orbi 
Terrarum, et festis cogit celebrare diebus: 

Non ita difficile est rationem reddere verbis. 

Quippe etenim jam turn Divum mortalia saecla 
Egregias animo facies vigilante videbant, 

Et magnis in somnis mirando corporis auctu. 

His igitur sensum tribuant, propterea quod 
Membra movere videbantur, vocesque superbas 
Mittere pro facie praeclara, et viribus amplis : 
iEternamque dabant vitam, qua semper eorum 
Supeditabatur facies, et forma manebat. 

These passages, I have quoted, contain a summary of the gloomy, wretched 
philosophy of the celebrated poem of Lucretius, “Rerum Natural begin¬ 
ning book 5th, line 814. 

* Vide the Zoonomia, Darwin, vol. i, p. 392, 4th American edit.; and 
p. 397, et sequente, where he labors to establish, from the phenomena of 
living nature, that all the variety of animated beings, have sprung from the 
same rudimental beginnings, by the progressive evolution of the organic 
forces. It is the idea of Democritus, dressed up in the costume of modern, 
improved science;—an idea which supplants a Divine creation of lives, and 
was unworthy of his noble mind. It is unaccountable, many good philoso¬ 
phers, like him, still torture their ingenuity to retire as far as possible from 
the presence of the Divinity. 



VITAL ECONOMY—RELATIONS. 


87 


Since, then, the viable elements, of themselves, are incapa¬ 
ble of vital combination, or independently of the attraction of . 
the vital principle; the first of the series of all animated 
beings, must have had an origin altogether different from 
those which have proceeded from them. 

This view is confirmed by our most ancient and sacred 
writings; by the traditions, legends of all ancient people. 
According to the Edda, Askus and Embla, or Adam and 
Eve were formed by the sons of Bore. Other ancient books 
contain similar accounts.* 

The statue of the first man was fashioned by the hands 
of the universal Creator, but it did not respire until after 
the breath of lives was placed in its nostrils. It had nos¬ 
trils. It continued to live, it had lungs to respond to the 
breath of lives; it lived, had blood, heart and arteries ready 
formed to make this breath effectual, or to transfer the blood 
to the lungs for oxydation; had brain and nerves to receive 
the influence of this breath, without which it would fall 
short of life and a “living soul;”—all the tissues proper to 
the human form, not now plastic clay, but such as we be¬ 
hold in the living subject. 

In this formation, we may think, were established the 
organic forces, which since have shaped the clay or viable 

* It would appear, many ages after the flood, men were satisfied with the 
knowledge and opinions they had received from their antediluvian fathers; 
and it was not until after extensive wars had been waged; great battles 
fought; and considerable empires established, that thinking and speculation 
made much progress. Their knowledge rapidly increased, but truth walked 
by the side of colossal error. 

The peaceful Divinity, they brought with them across the flood, no longer 
answered to their wants, and the clamor of their ambition. Rulers must 
excite popular superstition to assist their authority, as Numa Pompilius, 
who pretended to consult, on public matters, the goddess Egeria. 

The charms of war, and the glory of its leaders, must be dressed out for 
the eye of posterity. A variety of supernatural agents are wanted, which give 
employment to priests and the poets. The first pure knowledge of the 
Creator is lost, and men attribute the first formation of things to Saturn, 
Venus, Tellus.—Vanity perpetuates the delusion—patriotism, all the pas¬ 
sions become the fruitful mothers of gods. 


88 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


elements of our bodies into the structures proper to them. 
These forces unexhausted, unchanged in their actions and 
results, have continued since to be transmitted through all 
generations. In the same manner, we must infer, every 
member of the economy received existence in the beginning. 


CHAPTER Y. 

ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 

Life, base, condition of all happiness and good, its love 
was deeply planted in the frame-work of all conscious exist¬ 
ence. This inseparable love is nature’s testimony to its pre¬ 
cious gift. 

Its fragile nature and high consequence among things, 
stand out in bold relief from the pains, I may say, the strong 
barriers, thrown round for its protection and conservation. 
To warm it, a thousand suns wander in the sky and burn. 
In the equable, solar motions, its functions are equably 
regulated. It soon grows weary with action and needs repose. 
To aid, secure its rest, night draws softly over the world 
her dark mantle, wrought with shades and dreams, and shuts 
out innumerable stimulations, which would but torment. 
Again she lifts it up to let in the sun’s broad blaze, to 
arouse it to activity. Hence, antiquity grateful, erected 
night into a Divinity, and put on her a shining robe of stars. 
To keep the constantly changing fuel of its flames burning, 
the air is drawn round the earth, and presses closely its 
whole surface. To cheer, animate it, the floor of each ocean 
was spread out to hold the waters: each stream meanders— 
nature, in all her forms, waits round to supply it, as if con¬ 
scious of its constantly returning wants. 

For it kindle inextinguishably in a parent’s heart the 
fiercest fires. For it friendship was born forging burning 



t 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—GENERALITIES. 89 

chains, which secures gregation, society. Where it perishes, 
the laboured, lettered stone, lifts its white form, to converse 
with desolating time. 

The love of life manifests itself, peers out, in all our con¬ 
scious acts, forms, as I may say, the visible exterior of our 
being. Its sped hope recaught, pushes forward, for awhile, 
the lagging blood of the dying man; brightens again his 
eye; invigorates his voice; and smootliens out the features, 
which death was arranging for the long, dark night before 
him. 

All the objects of visible nature appear to obey general 
laws; to be united in one great action; and their pheno¬ 
mena stand in relation to one another, as cause and effect. 
They all possess inseparable properties, through which they 
respond to these laws; and present the sensible universe, as 
the scene of ceaseless, harmonious, co-ordinated activity. 

Hence some philosophers, as Campanella, Cardan, Van 
Helmont, delight to contemplate all sensible existences, as 
enjoying life alike; as participating in the universal life of 
the world. Antiquity took much pleasure in such hylozoic 
views, as is evident from their works. The great error of 
these partisans of this arbitrary, absolute philosophy, as it 
has been styled, is, that they did not distinguish between this 
great life, and the life of plants and animals; but regarded 
the latter only as particular manifestations of the activity 
of the fundamental force of nature modified. Or they made 
a modification of the cause, which moves all bodies, the 
immediate cause of life in plants and animals. In a certain 
sense, every being may be said to have life, since every one 
is active; but not the life of plants and animals, which, in 
them, depends upon the organic force,—a force, that differs 
entirely from all the other forces of nature. 

Since the days of Glisson,* most all the great physiolo¬ 
gists, as Haller, Blumenbach, Barth ez, Hufeland and Tiede- 
mann,—attribute the phenomena of life immediately to a 
vital or organic force, special, peculiar to living bodies. To 

* Vid. his De natura substantiae energetica—de vita naturae. 


8 


90 ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—GENERALITIES. 

confound, therefore, the acts of this force and the force itself, 
with those of gravitation, the molecular attractions, and their 
cause or causes, is unphilosophical, and an abuse of all lan¬ 
guage. We must distinguish between the fundamental 
energy of nature, of the activity of which all beings partici¬ 
pate in the manifestations, and the plastic, vital force; and be¬ 
tween the universal life, and the peculiar life by organization. 
They are distinct things. These manifestations of activity, 
as I shall show, when sensation will be the subject of dis¬ 
cussion, offer to the organic cause, the incitations, and con¬ 
nect closely all living movements with the great movement 
of the world; but these movements flow out of the organic 
cause, are alone due to it, and, consequently, form a class 
of phenomena particular and distinct from all others. 

We know not vitality in its extent or essence. Its foun¬ 
tain is the same, whence all visible existence has emanated. 
When the divine poets and sages would impress upon us 
the deepest sense of the Divine nature, they call him the 
living God. Life is eternal; its actions irradiate infinite 
time and space, constituting their fulness. Its streams 
above flow on without ages—full. Beyond the great solar 
walk, or the sphere of sorrow, where all good men, through 
love and obedience, fix their hopes, pestilence does not stir, 
fevers burn, or coffins drink up its rolling, tranquil waters. 
Each season comes laden only with good. But, here below, 
placed entirely in dependence upon matter and organization, 
■which limit and measure it out, its vigor is crushed; its 
fulness lost; it vacillates; its actions intermit; and it keeps 
along with time only by the perpetual renewal of its forces. 

To this life, descended from the same fountain in the Be- 
ing of beings, most all the material properties, energies, are 
in exact opposition, which to be , its efforts must overcome. 
The statical and chemical forces constantly dispute strength 
and empire with the organizing energy. Hence life’s un¬ 
steady fulness and motion; time’s feeble movement, which 
is itself exhausting, carries it hence; while the great trans¬ 
material life stands firm against the strength and mighty 
rush of eternal duration. 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY 


91 


SECTION I. 

EXAMINATION OF THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL THEORY OF LIFE. 

It is a question among philosophers, whether life and 
organization be only a particular mode of the existence of 
matter, or of a nature sui generis. Some have manifested 
anxiety to remount to the source of life, and ascertain the 
fundamental cause of all its movements. It exists in the 
midst of the most impenetrable obscurity. 

According to the statement of Martini,* with others Gar- 
dini obtained great reputation in Italy among the native 
philosophers, for applying the laws of electricity to the ex¬ 
planation of the living functions. Dr. W. Philip, of Eng¬ 
land, labored hard, and with much pleasure, to establish the 
identity of the galvanic and nervous fluids.f Since the 
nervous tissue is concerned in all the vital acts—base, unity 
of all the functions—this identity rigidly admitted , the whole 
phenomena of animation, would be but little other than the 
attractions and repulsions, the sequences of the activity of 
the galvanic fluid. 

MM. Georget,J Fourcault, and their sectaries deny the 
existence of a vital principle, of all vital properties, discard 
them as ontologisms, and maintain the nature of life is 
purely chemical. “ En etudiant les phenomenes attribues a 
la sensibilite dans la serie des etres, il est facile de voir que 
cette propriete, telle qu’ elle est admise par les vitalistes, n’ 
est qu’ une entite, et que 1’ on doit rapporter les phenomenes 
de T excitation et de la sensation a des courans electriques 
et a des actions moleculaires dont le systeme nerveux est 
siege.”—“ La vie n’ est done qu’ une succession de pheno¬ 
menes determines,” continues the same author, M. Four¬ 
cault, “dans les corps organises par 1’ action des fluides 

* Elem. de Physiologie, p. 28. 

f Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions—passim. 

£ De la Physiologie du Syst. Nerv. &c. tome i. p. 45. 


92 ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 

electriques, ou par celle cies causes excitatrices exterieures 
et interieures; elle resulte, ainsi que nous venons de le 
prouver de V action intime et reciproque des fluides et des 
solides doues de proprietes physico-chimiques a un hant 
degre d’ intensite.”* 

Since analogous conditions, under which electricity is 
spontaneously developed in inorganic, exist in living bodies, 
it is but reasonable they too, in the changes of the states of 
matter their functions constantly achieve, should evolve 
and manifest it. In the actual state of science, it must be 
admitted, in the majority, if not in all the vital acts, as in 
the assimilation of the repairing materials; nutritive decom¬ 
position of the organs; hsematogeny or change of venous 
into arterial blood; the secretions, &c. galvanism or electricity 
by contact, displays its action or suffers its state modified. 

From the zigzag manner the muscular fibres contract; 
from the angles of flexion being always situated at the same 
points; the nervous filets here and there cutting these fibres 
at right angles, MM. Prevost and Dumas were led to regard 
the phenomena of muscular contraction, as electrical; and as 
taking place according to known electro-dynamical laws. 

A great number of experiments prove there exists some 
analogy between the mode of action of the galvanic and ner¬ 
vous fluids. The experiments of Dr. Philip, to whose work 
I have alluded, supporting chylification, respiration, and ex¬ 
citing other vital functions by supplying a galvanic current 
in place of the nervous influx, after the proper nerves had 
been completely divided, were repeated and verified in France 
by MM. Lavasseur and Edwards. Similar experiments 
were made by Pfaff, Ritter and others with the same results. 
Without the communication by a metallic arc, Aldini placed 
the denuded nerve and muscle in immediate contact; and 
the muscle contracted the same as if the galvanic fluid had 
been applied to it. The only condition necessary to the 
success of this experiment is, that the parts upon which it is 
made, should be endowed with a high degree of vitality. It 
* Lois de I’ organisme vivant—pp. 126 and 319. Tome i. 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 93 

is known the eel of Surinam, Gymnotus electricus , and some 
other fishes, generate, secrete electricity, with which they 
attack their prey and their enemies. Prof. Tiedemann men¬ 
tions, likewise, some of the spiders as electrical. 

Electricity forms an atmosphere about the bodies, which 
conduct it, as the experimental science shows. In imitation 
of this expansion or law of electricity, it has been thought 
by many, that the nervous fluid surrounds the nerves to 
some distance, which generate or conduct it; or forms about 
them a true atmosphere. It was in this way, Reil, as I shall 
notice in a future chapter, explained the sensibility of parts 
and the transmission of sensation from one tissue to another, 
where no nerves could be traced, or nervous communication 
discovered. M. de Humboldt observed, in experimenting 
upon living animals with galvanic electricity, that the mus¬ 
cle contracted before the metallic arc connecting with it the 
nerve, came in actual contact; and regarded this phenome¬ 
non as taking place through the intervention of a nervous 
atmosphere. Desmoulins, rich in the power of observation 
and reasoning, maintained—“ except the optic and olfactive, 
the cephalic and spinal nerves are not continued from the 
cerebro-spinal axis, but are simply in juxtaposition, and, con¬ 
sequently, demand for the execution of their functions, the 
transmission, at a distance of the nervous fluid, in imitation 
of electricity, forming atmospheres about its conductors.” 

This view of Desmoulins corresponds with Humboldt’s ob¬ 
servation of the contraction of the muscle, before the contact 
of the galvanic conductor; and with the deductions of Reil, 
in relation to the transmission of sensations and existence 
of sensibility in parts devoid of visible nerves. 

The energy of sensibility—of the nervous phenomena of 
different parts of the body,—appears to be in relation to the 
number of supplying nerves, and their various expansions;— 
to the extent or amount of surface they present. The belief 
likewise has prevailed among philosophers, that the intensity 
of the electrical phenomena, was in the ratio* of the extent 

* Within a very few years, this view of the subject, if not completely 

8 * 


94 ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 

of the surfaces, from which the fluid was disengaged; so that 
there exists an analogy between the electric and nervous 
fluids, not only in regard to the manner of their activity, hut 
likewise in regard to the accidents of their generation or 
production. 

Upon these data, M. Desmoulins advanced with argument 
apparently conclusive, that vision is as much more extended, 
as the retina is folded internally upon itself; that the under¬ 
standing is not in relation to the volume and mass of the 

D 

brain, but to the extent of its external and internal surfaces, 
or to that of its convolutions without and ventricles within. 
Thus he admitted or erected into a law, that the energy of 
the nervous action is always proportional to the extent of the 
nervous surfaces. 

In the actual epoch, Dutrochet has gone beyond all his 
devanciers; trod on some new ground; and given to the 
chemical theory, a novel and more resplendent form of reason 
and argument. His discoveries are in the crucible of time, 
which will do justice to him and the science. 

The active agents of his two great classes of vital move¬ 
ments, organico-endosmose and exosmose , are electrical cur¬ 
rents passing in opposite directions. Upon these two classes 
depend all organic composition and decomposition. Their 
phenomena, therefore, include the essence of whatever apper¬ 
tains to vitality; and since they are electrical, electricity is"* 
the prime mover , the cause of all animation. But we must 
refer to his work,* for the expose of his ingenious views. 

MM. Becquerel and Baclioue de Vialer, with great care 

subverted, could not be confirmed by an association of American philosophers 
at Philadelphia. They constructed a Voltaic pile with very large plates, but 
could not discover its power was any greater than another of the same number 
of plates of half the size. So far, therefore, as the truth of the argument of 
this philosopher rests upon this analogy, it must fall short of demonstration. 
And if the intellectual faculties be in proportion to the extent of the external 
and internal surfaces of the encephalon, they must be so from other causes 
or laws than those which regulate the galvanic phenomena. 

* L’ agent immediate du movement vital devoile dans sa nature, et cet. 
passim. 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 95 

and aid of much natural science, each in a separate work, have 
completely unveiled the mystery of all aggregation, union of 
living molecules; all sensation, volition, thought, sentiment 
—the vital functions separately—by the different operations, 
combustions, neutralizations, &c. of the galvanic imponder¬ 
able. Finally, the advocates of transcendentalism, thepolar- 
ists behold life, as appertaining to all the bodies of nature 
under two different forms. In some, they say, it is manifest; 
these are appropriately styled phcener obi otic ; in others, it is 
latent or concealed, which are termed cryplobiotic. 

They advocate a substantial vital nature or an imponder¬ 
able biotic , evolved from the action of life, different from the 
galvanic, electric, or magnetic fluid; in which resides essen¬ 
tially the living, dynamical force. Vitality is no solitary 
exertion of powder; is neither mechanical nor chemical, but 
consists in the conjoint action of the modification of all known 
powers. In this action, consequently, are developed the 
attractive and repulsive forces, the force of cohesion, gravi¬ 
tation, the chemical attractions, oxydations, deoxydations, the 
phenomena of galvanism, of all the imponderable agents. All 
these forces, in whose equipolent activity and struggle con- 
sits life, are modifications of two secondary forces, which con¬ 
tinually attract and repel, remain always in opposition; for 
this reason are denominated polar; and which are derived 
from an universal parent force in its nature inscrutable. 

The polarists explain the philosophy of organic chemistry 
—the living functions—by the equilibria, predominances of 
these forces, effecting continual molecular changes in the 
organized and organesc-ent matters; and lay great stress on 
oxygen , oxydation , sign of the predominance of the con¬ 
tractive force; and on hydrogen , hydrogination , the inflam¬ 
mable principle , which characterizes predominant expansion. 

Since the vital phenomena are caused or arise from the 
action of the imponderable biotic , the galvanic, magnetic, and 
other imponderable and ponderable energies, originating 
chemical modifications in the substance of the organs, the 
polar acknowledges, with the manner of operation, all the 


96 ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 

active forces of the electro-chemical theory of MM. Dutro- 
chet, Becquerel, Bachoue de Yialer, and others besides. 
Like the electro-theorists, the polarists recognize the oxy- 
dation and deoxydation of the organs, and the constant deter¬ 
mination of chemical actions, which give rise to galvanic 
currents. 

These currents move in concentric and eccentric direc¬ 
tions, cause new chemical movements, and thus sustain the 
organs in play. The polar theory differs principally from 
the electro-chemical, in the much greater number of active 
elements it employs for base; and in going a few steps fur¬ 
ther into the dark. 

From the number and variety of active causes of life, of 
which the polarists speak; from the undefined, indefinable 
nature of their separate and joint agencies, it is extremely 
difficult, for those not accustomed to touch and handle the 
tenuous structure of their theory, to profound their views. 
Indeed, if the logical order of ideas exist throughout, from 
any exhibition of it yet made generally public, it is perplex¬ 
ing to trace. In this theory, philosophy lifts its colossal form, 
and hides its awful head beyond the clouds of Italy and Ger¬ 
many ; but we may expect it long, before it expands any 
clear and useful light. 

The electro-chemical theory rests manifestly, wholly on 
the electric or galvanic laws, as developed and demonstrated 
in inorganic matter, applied to living bodies for the explana¬ 
tion of their functions. In all chemical actions or changes 

o 

whatever , observes M. Bachoue illustrating his views, elec¬ 
tricity is more or less developed. There exists simulta¬ 
neously, in all the organs, a chemical action from the con¬ 
version of venous into arterial blood, and from the transform¬ 
ation of this blood again into the venous. The nervous 
centres, through their nerves which are conductors, commu¬ 
nicate with every part of the organism. There must, therefore, 
be established in each nervous cord, a continual galvanic 
current, going from its central to its peripheric extremity, 
and contrarily, as the chemical action, from which the 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 97 

current emanates, predominates at the one or the other 
extremity ; or according to the electro-chemical law laid 
down by M. Becquerel: — “That when two substances, 
brought into communication with each other by a conductor, 
exercise, at the same time, a chemical action on a third, a 
galvanic current is developed, which is always directed from 
the substance, in which this action is the strongest, toward 
the one in which it is less so.” 

It is this current, according to M. Bachoue, which deter¬ 
mines all the actions or functions of the organs. -This cur¬ 
rent itself is derived from the display of chemical affinity. 
Chemical action, therefore , developing galvanic electricity , is 
the productive cause of all the vital phenomena —of the form¬ 
ation, growth and decay of the organs—of sensation, reflec¬ 
tion, sentiment—of the tender fires which burn in the lover’s 
heart; the spirit, which wept in the eyes of Corneile; of the 
genius, which conceived the Paradise Lost, the great, en¬ 
during song of Troy. 

Thus the electro-chemical theorists explain the cause, 
mechanism and operations of life, which have passed into 
a physiological doctrine, that claims for partisans philoso¬ 
phers of real merit and genius. We will now offer some 
views, which, to us, render their reasonings unsatisfactory, 
and inconclusive. 

All the bodies of nature, with their component atoms, 
appear to manifiest a specific capacity, or exert with a force 
variable among themselves, an attraction for heat, electricity 
—for all the imponderable agents, wffiich they sustain in 
eguilibrio.—'N'&y, their different states, habitudes, the changes 
through which they pass in time, seem to be subordinate or 
depend upon the dynamical laws of these agents, of which 
all the various attractions may be the simple manifestations. 
So long as this equilibrium is maintained, these agents are 
not put in evidence; hence so little known to antiquity, 
their detection being difficult by the senses alone. But the 
moment they are brought into disproportion with the speci¬ 
fic capacity of bodies or the equilibrium is broken, they dis- 


98 ORGANIZATION AND LIFE-CHEMICAL THEORY. 

play their phenomena. Thus the metallic plate charged 
with the magnetic fluid, shows the mariner his path through 
the sea; and the electrometer, by a few turns of the wheel, 
becomes animated as with a new existence. Life, likewise, 
by nature’s art, in the molecular changes through which 
it conducts matter, breaks this equilibrium, and develops, 
manifests electricity. 

Now if nature only formed magnetic needles and electro¬ 
meters, and they could not be deprived of their activity but 
* by the complete destruction of their forms; and some phi¬ 
losopher, in the progress of time, should discover their pores 
were penetrated by a subtle, active fluid eliminated in their 
operations; and were to conclude not only their polar phe¬ 
nomena, but likewise all their sensible properties, formation 
and constitution, w r ere due to the agency of this fluid; w T e 
should have presented a course of reasoning precisely parallel 
or similar to that of the advocates of the electro-chemical 
theory of life. But since art forms these instruments so 
useful to science and industry, this philosopher, by actual 
experiment, could be convinced of the error of his hypo¬ 
thesis: not so with the electro-theorists; since, from the 
constitutional elements of our world, organization and life 
cannot progress without evolving and manifesting galvanic 
electricity. It may, however, be replied to them :—if this 
electricity be the primary cause of organization and life, as 
they sustain; and, according to their own account, it only 
emanates in the living economy from anterior chemical 
actions going on in the organs, these actions must precede the 
existence of the organs , in order to become their plastic or 
formative cause. But these actions can only co-exist with 
the organs and their life, and therefore cannot be the cause 
of them. Again, since galvanic electricity suffers its state 
modified or is evolved in all chemical changes; and since 
these changes take place in dead, as in living bodies, this 
electricity must progress actively onward after death, and 
therefore cannot be the cause of life. Indeed, if this mar¬ 
vellous fluid w r ere nature’s true vivifier, since it exists in all 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE—CHEMICAL THEORY. 99 

bodies in a quiescent or active state, and becomes operative 
m all their constitutional changes, and in many circum¬ 
stances, under which they exist, we should think life would 
not run on, through so many ages, in the dull monotony of 
the same modal forms. 

This fluid manifests itself to be a stimulus of high power, 
and that energy in living bodies upon which it exerts its 
force, in place of itself, we may be certain, is the true cause 
of all the functions. Hence it progresses actively on after 
death without life , because this energy which it excites, is 
subverted in the last sigh. 

From these and many other similar facts which might be 
adduced in support, the conclusion is irresistible, that in 
the experiments of Philip, Lavasseur, Edwards, which I 
have cited, the galvanic fluid acted only as a stimulus 
upon the nervous or sensorial power, which remained in the 
organs, whose functions were excited and sustained by it, 
after the complete division of the nerves. And we may 
suppose any other stimulus of equal force, if such there be, 
would, in like manner, excite the vital manifestations. 

If the galvanic and nervous fluids be identical, the latter, 
transferred from living into inorganic bodies, ought to pro¬ 
duce in them the galvanic phenomena. We constantly 
handle and carry about us substances, which are good con¬ 
ductors of this electricity, and we never observe them becom¬ 
ing affected by it. Even by direct and ingenious experi¬ 
ment, M. Pouillet was unable to detect the centripetal and 
centrifugal galvanic currents, upon which M. Bachoue laid 
down his theory. The two fluids, therefore, though resem¬ 
bling in their mode of activity, as proved by MM. Reil, 
Aldani, Humboldt and a host of others, are not identical. 

Forlorn! Man, investigating man, occasionally falls in 
with the route of nature, and catches a glimpse of her ways. 
He instantly beholds new sciences or new directions in 
which they must hereafter travel. He is carried away by 
his enthusiasm, and rears up, without examining all the 
ground, their ponderous materials; glory inscribes his name; 


100 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


but posterity coming along afterwards removes all as rub¬ 
bish. Thus the theory we examine—thus “ tout recement,” 
cried M. Fray, “sans convaincre beaucoup de personnes, 
q’ il etait possible a 1’ aide de la chimie de creer des corps 
vivants.” 

If, finally, however, to any extent the functions of life 
have yielded to chemical explanation, the cause of organiza¬ 
tion has remained a profound secret, and the views which 
explain the one ought to account for the other. For, the 
functions being the acts of the organs, and the final results 
of all the acts purely vital being the composition and de¬ 
composition of living bodies, it follows, that the cause of 
organization is the cause of the functions. 

SECTION II. 

THE FABRICATING FORCE IN ALL ANIMATED EXISTENCE ORIGINAL, 

DISTINCT. 

The movements and forms this force impresses on matter 
are peculiar; and, in the manner of action, it differs from all 
the innate, material forces. 

In the molecular changes bodies can undergo by their 
affinities, w~e behold a definite series and regular order. The 
same bases always produce bodies of the same chemical con¬ 
stitution. And, from the order and limited manner, in which 
the atoms will unite, as proved by the atomic theory now 
universally received, nature appears to have imposed re¬ 
straints upon herself in her modification of the corporeal 
forms. She seems to delight the most in her binary combi¬ 
nations, and displays of her aggregative attractions. Her 
chemifactions, of which the crystalline bodies are the most 
perfect models, and in whose production all her art and 
chemic strength exhaust—classic works—exhibit no variety 
of internal structure, possess no self-born power of action, run 
through no regular series of changes, or in an immutable 
order, evolve other forms like themselves. They respond 


IMMENSITY OF THE LIVING ACTION. 


101 


actively to none of the exterior forces of the universe. They 
obey simply their own attractions; and would remain forever 
stationary, but for the contact of other bodies of antagonizing 
affinities, which become their spoilers. 

Contrarily, the living fabricating force knows no binary 
compounds, no crystallizing law. It disposes the material 
elements alone into the ternary or quaternary combinations. 
Atoms in pairs, of which the chemical attractions are so 
lavish, do not live; and to attribute the vital forms to their 
agency, is to go back to the cradle of chemistry, and learn 
over the first lessons she taught, “ that the only difference in 
all bodies arises from the different manner in which their 
particles are united.” 

To the forms of life deriving their origin, at first, from a 
Divine creation,—which, through the agency of sexes, have 
be£n evolved through all times upon the same great primi¬ 
tive models, whose different parts modify and combine to 
definite results, having relation to themselves and to what is 
exterior, thus interesting what exists afar in the conditions of 
their being;—which persevere not by atomic attraction, but 
by playing in the forces which impel all physical existence; 
—and which, in the operation of the economy they form, 
develop intelligence, a new power to help out conservation, 
there is no likeness or parallel in the rest of things. The 
impetuosity of evidence proclaims this living substantive 
force to be the attribute of creation, which, operating as a 
secondary cause since the first production of lives, has con¬ 
tinued to imitate the acts of its Divine Author. 


SECTION III. 

VASTNESS OF THE ACTION OF THE LIVING FORCE.-LAW OF ECCENTRIC 

FORMATION. 

All bodies non-vital constantly feel or exist under the 
autocracy of the chemical forces. The direct tendency of 
the vital cause, with whatever nature it may be clothed, is to 
arrest the action of these forces, undo their work, set out afresh, 
9 


102 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


and impress on the molecules those varied arrangements and 
forms suited to its own economy. 

When we look at the immense boundaries of the field this 
cause alone peoples—the great distance which lies between 
the conferva , the cryptogames aftd the mighty cedar and oak, 
between the microscopic animalculse and the gigantic whale 
and elephant—our intelligence feels all its insignificance, and 
the frailty of all its knowledge. But when we think of the 
great number of organs composing any animal; the immense 
variety of their shapes, structures and properties; the different 
uses or ends they wisely co-ordinate and subserve, which pre¬ 
suppose in this organizing cause an intimate knowledge of 
the position, properties and influences of distant worlds, as 
well as with what immediately concerns the animal itself, 
we are thrust beyond the temples of our knowledge into the 
startling presence of the Divinity. 

The distinct organic devices, which share among them¬ 
selves the vital whole of any of the vertebrato-respiratory 
classes, may amount to many thousands. What prodigious 
instrumentation! These elements, life’s simplest terms, in 
the denominations of anatomists, group to form fasciculi, 
organs, apparatuses—the immediate instruments of the func¬ 
tions. These instruments with their composing elements, 
modify in every link of the whole great length of the zoolo¬ 
gical chain. The amount of labour, then—the number and 
variety of forms, this organizing force evolves to impel on¬ 
ward the great orb of life,—transcends all enumeration, all 
comprehension. Here opens, I may say, the great universe 
of vitality. Light and shadow hang over and about it. We 
gaze in its distance till vision is swallowed up of infinity:— 
field extends beyond field, till curtained in darkness. Yon¬ 
der white shines life’s orient, festooned with purple flowers; 
its beautiful gates stand always open. Here enter and re¬ 
volve the ages. 

There opens the Tartarean gulf of night, down which, 
they plunge, and stop their noisy flight. Still others crowd 
the gates and pour on as the restless cataract down the same 
gulf. This gulf opens below, and they roll on calmly to the 


LAW OF ECCENTRIC FORMATION. 


103 


fountain whence they first flowed. How still does life return¬ 
ing approach the Creator, death, the noiseless path that leads 
to his presence! Against how many rocks and winding 
shores, O life, do thy mad waters chafe, before they reach 
below the place of their rest! 

So we gaze at the heavens beyond the solar focus. Fields 
terminate but in other fields gathering darkness. There we 
behold the arrangements for another economy of existence. 
Like our own stars, others wander and burn; beyond them 
others, until the day they shed before our eyes, travels on 
the other side of intervening darkness. 

Not only have the forms of all lives been continually re¬ 
produced upon the same primitive types, but likewise each 
separate organ of every individual. Vital organogeny, so 
successfully interpreted in our day by Meckel,* Serres,f 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire,} and other illustrious anatomists, shows 
that one great principle or law of formation answers for, and 
reigns throughout the whole economy. All the organs are 
developed from the circumference to the centre. From this 
law arises the double evolution of each; the extremities 
unite and form those called unique; all the rest composing 
the animal receive their shapes from the laws of symmetry 
and conjugation, flowing from the simple one of eccentric 
formation. All pass through a series of metamorphoses or 
fugitive shapes to reach the proper or permanent forms. 
The embryotic shapes of the superior classes, in their pro¬ 
gressive evolution, repeat the perfect or permanent ones of 
the inferior classes; so that those of the superior furnish an 
explanation for the organogeny of the inferior. 

Thus every organ, whether of the worm which crawls, of 
the eagle delighting in the strength of his pinion, or man in 
the treasure of his genius, is subjected, so far as its econo¬ 
my reaches, to the same march, and follows the same order 
of development. “Ainsiles memes lois,” says M. Serres, 
“president a la formation de tous les systemes organiques. 
Quelque simple que soit un organe, quelque complique qu’ 
il vous paraisse, suivez en ches les embryons les diverses 

* Anatomie compare, t Anat. comp, du cerveu. J Anat. philosophique. 


104 




ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


metamorphoses, vous le troverez invariablement assujeti ala 
meme marche, suivant le raeme ordre dans son developement 
regulier, et vous presentant dans son developement irregulier 
les memes deformations.”* 

May I say, some of the celestial orbs igniform, shoot along 
their elliptic paths and return; others, the satellites, revolve 
round the planets, but, in like manner, one law co-ordinates 
and explains all their perplexed and complicated motions, 
and conducts the whole in eternal harmony on the route of 
nature. 

By one law, the law of eccentric evolution, nature is con¬ 
ducting each member of the great living family across the 
ocean of time. By it she preserves them separate from one 
another, maintaining identity and perpetual harmony in the 
living empire. Thus we are assured the men of the actual 
epoch are the exact copies of those of all antiquity. By this 
law alone have been preserved the same fragrance of flowers, 
the spots of the leopard, the color “of the Ethiop’s skin.”— 
To it the moral and physical wants owe their perpetuation. 
The goat still crops the hibiscus; the wolf follows the lamb; 
the shepherd Corydon delights in the smiles of his beautiful 
Alexis. 

r 

The discovery and establishment of this great law with its 
modifications, which assigns to every structure of animated 
existences the form and the place it is to occupy in the com 
position of the living whole,—essence of the divine words, 
“Let every thing bring forth after its kind,”—have achieved 
for animal physics, what Newton’s labors did for dynamics. 
This discovery, in our day as I have said, is due to the efforts 
of philosophical anatomy , so much neglected by my ingenious 
enterprising countrymen, in the hands of the great men 
quoted above. In the horizon of the sciences, it has reared 
up another monument to honor human nature, not less co¬ 
lossal and magnificent, not less beautiful, than the one, on 
which Newton placed the top stone a little before the last 
century. 

We have seen one law co-ordinates, governs matter in 

* Idem Anat. comp.—tome i. p. 35. 


ADDRESS OF THE LIVING ARTISAN. 


105 


space; one law reigns throughout the living empire. Thus 
the farther truth is pursued, the more the sciences concentrate, 
the more man draws near the Divinity, whence all truth and 
science radiate. 

I will add: From the obscurity of vegetable vitality, and 
the difficulty of knowledge from vivisections, vegetable mor¬ 
phogeny does not occupy the same elevated ground in evi¬ 
dence. But from all that is known, from analogy or the 
fact, that all beings are traversing time by the shortest routes, 
it must be the same as that of the animal; and all future 
discovery will tend to the establishment of the identity. 

SECTION IV. 

^ ^ ’ ' T ^ 

ADDRESS OF THE LIVING ARTISAN FORCE. 

A thing marvellous! This force not onlv fabricates the 

•/ 

parts of animals fitted to subserve one another, but likewise 
to modify the qualities and properties of the surrounding 
bodies, as well as of those which roll in space, and combines 
the actions and influences of these bodies with those of ani¬ 
mal bodies, in the economy they form. 

But right here, in the very threshold of this inquiry, are 
met illustrious philosophers, as Hamberger, Laghi, Georget, 
and their school, differing, however, much among themselves, 
who deny altogether the existence of the force of which we 
speak. These reformers, pruners of what they consider the 
fungosities of the sciences, banish from medicine all vital 
forces , properties , principles , natures , and regard them as on- 
tologisms , spurious entities created by fancy. They found 
themselves upon the example of Bacon, w T ho discarded in 
physics all occult causes, properties; and pointed out obser¬ 
vation , experience , and reasoning , as the only means by which 
human knowledge is to be perfected. They have attempted 
for medicine what this great man achieved for general phy¬ 
sics. 

But can we prudently banish from all the sciences inscru¬ 
table or occult principles, forces ? They stand out everywhere 

9* 


106 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


as barriers, beyond which research cannot go, and define the 
several domains of our knowledge. They form the dark 
bottom on which it all rests. The true observation of facts , 
'phenomena of things; the arrangement of their ideas accord¬ 
ing to the order in which they occur and exist in nature , con¬ 
stitute all good philosophy. The admission of forces, princi¬ 
ples beyond comprehension, occult , kept in their right place, 
does not hinder this arrangement of the ideas of phenomena; 
and comports well with the limited share of intelligence al¬ 
lotted us. 

These philosophers of the tangible faith , in their ardor to 
correct and advance the sciences, have fallen into the error 
exactly opposite to that from which Bacon drew them, not 
less detrimental; and merited equally the reproach they 
lavish, obscurum exponere per obscurius. 

Banishing a special organizing force, vital properties, a 
psychological entity, u Life is only the empty play of the or¬ 
gans , the organism in action; the functions are the organs 
themselves acting through their proper incitants; perception , 
volition , reasoning , the passions , are simply , the brain in a 
state of excitement 

Getting rid of an organizing force, they refer the material 
composition of living bodies to physico-chemicalprinciples not 
less occult. But if it be gratuitous, presumptious to admit 
an artisan force as constituting a part in living natures, and 
a perceiving, thinking entity, distinct from the living struc¬ 
ture ; what surer, clearer light do we obtain from the state¬ 
ment of the vital phenomena just quoted? and how can we 
be certain this order is the true order of nature? For, how 
can we conceive any resemblance, connection between a 
perception, a thought, and the brain acting, which, in this 
statement, are convertible terms, or the same identical things? 
and what union do we behold between the organs operative- 
through their incitants, and the ingenious devices they con- 

* vis n’ est que le jeu de ces organes, 1’ organisme en action:—Les 
functions ne sont que des organes agissant sur on par 1’ effect de leurs exci- 
tans propres, &c.—Vid. tome i. Georget, De la phys. du syst. p. 45, et se- 
quente supra citato. 


ADDRESS OF THE LIVING ARTISAN. 107 

stitute ? The action of a thing, remarks Lord Karnes,* is 
not any thing different from itself. The psychological phe¬ 
nomena, therefore, or the mind is the brain itself indepen¬ 
dently of all its actions through the stimulations of its 
nerves.f—A gloomy idea unnaturally darkening the light 
of another world. And if we can conceive no connection, 
union, according to Mr. Hume,f there exists none—Con¬ 
ception, fruitful mother, we may suspect of scepticism, to 
the sciences in the hands of other men. 

Under the order of facts this system presents, the light 
indeed grows dimmer, gloomier. We must admit occult 
causes. Lobstein, in his study of the great sympathetic 
nerve, was forced to admit them. The connection in which 
the phenomena of nature are presented to us, necessitates 
them. The imperious demands of reason cannot be satis¬ 
fied till it reaches them, as ultimate, irreducible facts belong¬ 
ing to the same order it has travelled through. 

The existence of a living artisan force cannot be fabulous. 
We observe—the material system, created first, appears con¬ 
stituted as if no lives were contemplated to exist afterwards 
in connection with it. The generality of its forces, laws, is 
unfavorably disposed, has no relation, or is opposed to such 
existences.§> Organization could never have been sponta¬ 
neous. The production of the first living forms was by 
the Divine Artist; death became the order of nature; a liv¬ 
ing art-working force could alone arrest, modify these oppos¬ 
ing, refractory forces; re-copy the first models which had 
perished; and transmit them unblemished, according to 
pre-established order, through the successive ages of the 
world. But for the establishment of such a force, as we 
here vindicate, in view of what appears to be the fact, that 
the laws of matter are instituted exclusively for the good of 

Y; .. • ' • A 1 

* Sketches of the Hist, of Man. 

t M. Broussais has recently argued this point with his usual acumen in his 
physiology. But his reasoning, like all those of his faith, must be considered 
inconclusive. 

t Philosoph. Essays, vol. 2d. Idea of necessary connection, p. 59. 

§ Brown made life a forced state. 


103 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


its own system, or are without relation, after the first lives 
had perished, the subversion of the economy had been in¬ 
evitable. I will give some examples of the manner of its 
action. 

The rays of light move only in straight lines; and never 
vary but as the media vary, through which they pass. From 
this arrangement, vision could never take place. In this 
law of motion impressed on light, the seeing of animals, as 
I may say, appears not to have been prospective. But how 
does the living artisan act to meet this law on its own 
ground? It fashions and arranges the media in the admira- 
ble structures of the eye; and thus obtains concentrated 
light, the thing this law refuses, but which was needed, for 
the creation of vision. 

The artist human rears up his machinery at the foot of 
the descending water. The power is not sufficient to work 
it. He obtains the power, the stream refuses, by intercept¬ 
ing and accumulating the passing waters. Observation, 
experience, and study have taught their lessons; and in them, 
passed the sceptre over nature, into his hands. We are 
not surprised. But whence originate this universal fore¬ 
sight, wisdom, skill—this knowledge of the laws of light 
and the influence of media, according to which, the tissues 
of the eye are so successfully fashioned? 

Again: Respiration is a condition inseparable from all 
life. By its own weight, as in the first breath, the air would 
descend, and partially fill the lungs. But there is nothing 
in it to necessitate its own expulsion. Here this force, 
always, as we may say, dependent upon its own skill and 
resources, evolves a variety of structures and powers, wffiich 
it combines to overcome this weight, and establish respira¬ 
tion in the midst of the opposing forces. 

This subject will elsewhere fall to consideration. 


OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS. 




109 


SECTION V. 

( C t x - v 

OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS ON THE FIRST CAUSE OF LIFE. 

. 

The living structures present exact innumerable relations 
to the bodies, which exist exteriorly, as well as to the wants 
of the economy they form. Here indeed would seem em¬ 
phatically to hold Leibnitz’s “ pre-established harmony.” 
Here every thing is foreseen and provided for. But did the 
heart anticipate the hydronamic properties of the blood, it 
was to circulate, and provide itself with valves; the large 
trunks of the ascending veins, the gravitating force, and 
erect their barriers: the ear, the undulating air, and con- 
struct its mechanism accordingly; the subcutaneous nerves, 
the impressions of external bodies they were to receive, and 
expand their papillse to augment the force of these impres¬ 
sions ? 

The ancient philosophers early observed many of these re¬ 
lations, pushed their investigations up to an immovable point 
in nature, and styled the living body, the microcosm. But 
the great question, I have already made, constantly occurs, 
—from what deep unseen fountain flow forever this art, 
wisdom—so full—prescient—so successful, sure in contriv¬ 
ance, which unites the earth with the stars, and constitutes 
the organs of life their connecting links ? It is not chance 
operating by the same inflexible laws, which has conducted 
the living forms unchanged through the long and gloomy 
antiquity they have passed! It is not the divinity now con¬ 
stantly engaged in forming over again, the creatures He 
has so long since made!! 

Here is the end of reason; here dashes the torrent of night! 
Here the circle of light is bounded by the circle of darkness; 
where truth, for so many long and dreary ages, has continued 
to beat up and down, but could never pass, and has remained 
stationary. Here of old, as intimated, came Orpheus, Par- 
minedes, Gorgias, Milisus, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Prodi- 
cus, and a host of the devanciers ; and, on monuments more 


110 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


durable than brass, inscribed the impotency of their thought. 
It was here came Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, 
Sextus Empiricus, Asclepiades, Galen—the long caravan of 
the imitators of Hippocrates, the two extremities resting on 
remote epochs of time—and all those, who beat the route 
through of philosophy and physiology till this day, and made 
a similar inscription varying only a little the words. And 
the Demourgon , the public worker or builder, the Tlieion , 
without sex, neuter, something goddish, possessing an ineffa¬ 
ble nature, the Enormon , Phusis , Pncnma , Mens agitans 
molem , calidum innatum , impetum faciens , Soul of Stalh, 
Archeus of Paracelsus and Yanhelmont, epigastric forces of 
Buffon, Lacase, Bordeu and Bichat, Soul of nature, plastic 
Force , et cet., like the columns of Hercules reared up to 
mark the world’s boundaries, mark those of the mind’s in¬ 
vestigations of the first cause of life. 

Let us, for a moment, examine some of these hard words 
a little more in detail. Since energy or what causes all mo¬ 
tion, revolution, production, strikes the philosophic sense the 
most, had the speculative ancients known our gravity , no 
doubt it would have constituted the object of their venera¬ 
tion ; and, instead of nature , graviture or some of its syno- 
nymes, have come down to us the philosophical Deity prime¬ 
val. But it was the brilliant flames of the sun and stars, 
that riveted their contemplations, and kindled in their hearts 
the ardor of the first religion. Thus all antiquarians assure 
us, pyrolatry or fire-worship was the original pagan religion, 
and, consequently, fire held to be the original cause of our 
existence. According to the philologists, Nat in Chaldee 
means fire, from which comes probably nascor , I am born, 
natura , the phusis of the Greeks. The Chaldeans and Sa- 
bians offered their sacrifices to celestial armies of insuffera¬ 
ble brilliancy—the stars—which Orpheus styles “ the roving 
fires above.” They taught, as delivered by Zoroaster, that 
“ all things are the progeny of one fire, which is represented 
eternal, young, and old, of a spiral shape, and resembling, 
in the opinion of Tasso, that of the Seraphim as implied in 
1 they cast their glittering shields’ ‘ or themselves as glitter- 


OPINIONS OF THE ANCIENTS. 


Ill 


ing shields’ at his feet;”—figure emblematical of God’s eter¬ 
nity, and probable prototype of our alphabetical O. 

It is certain this doctrine is very old, since it was prohibi¬ 
ted by our ancient prophets, who forbid the worship of groves, 
places favorable to the contemplation of “the hosts of hea¬ 
ven.” 

The Egyptians in the persons of Osiris and Isis adored 
the sun and moon. We know the long-haired, far-shooting 
Apollo of the Greeks arid Romans, is the same as Osiris; 
and that their Vesta is a goddess, who anciently emigrated 
from Persia, where she received divine honors under the 
name of Mithra; and took up her residence in Greece, Italy, 
and some other countries. 

The Stoics erected nature, Vesta or fire into an omnipre¬ 
sent Deity, which continually creates, destroys, and governs. 
Accordingly, Sextus Empiricus, quoting from Xenophon, 
thus closes his argument on the first cause.— Natura nihil 
sine Deo est , nee Deus sine natura , sed idem est uterque. 

Not only Zeno and his Stoics, but the Peripatetic Aristotle 
himself, regarded the stars as living, active Divinities. And 
Lucian triumphantly asks, “ what do we seek”— Superos 
quid querimus ultra ? 

In discussing so far these words, by which physicians of 
all ages would express the organizing force or first cause of 
life , and which generally mean or will resolve into fire, we 
see our venerable physiology drew its first breath from the 
first philosophy and religion of men. We still talk of the 
sanilive poyver, the vis medicatrix , which evinces, that while 
the science of living structure itself has made such prodi¬ 
gious progress, on the nature of the vital cause, after three 
thousand years, we are not in the advance of the adorers of 
Vesta and Mithra. 

Mind, by constant friction, like Niagara’s waters in the 
course of ages, fritters away opposing obstacles; new routes 
are beat out, and new sciences are created; yet its bounda¬ 
ries in nature are prescribed, which, in all its struggles, it 
can never pass. Early, and apparently with but little effort, 
it seems to have reached many points of the great boundary 


112 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


circle; but much peace and prosperity among nations, and 
great duration of time, will be required, before it covers 
with solid science, all the ground, for which its forces 
qualify it. 

Hence, while some ideas make rapid progress, others as 
those we discuss, remain stationary; and bear no fruit to all 
the labor bestowed upon them. Concerning the great vital 
cause, we only know now what the ancients knew; and we 
have seen, their Demourgon, Pneuma, Nature, et cet., is 
chiefly a conjectural, creating fire, or are only personifica¬ 
tions of powers physical, hyperphysical, which can neither 
be discussed nor rendered intelligible. They saw what has 
continually since been seen, just what we now see, but 
reason always enterprising—that fortunate reason which 
has conducted thought safely into invisible worlds, gained 
triumphs and treasures—has not been able to stir beyond 

the twilight of the senses. 

, . 1 ' \ 
k. •, . , ■ “*■ 

, S * * . 4 * * ’ \ ' * . , v 

v ’ 1 ' - • * . , v l t 

SECTION VI. 

NECESSITY, IN V HE ACTUAL STATE OF THE SCIENCES, OF A NEW AND 
ENLARGED PHILOSOPHICAL NOMENCLATURE, FOR THE CLASSIFICATION 
OF THE VITAL FORCE WITH THE OTHER ACTIVE AGENTS OF NATURE. 

f r r v . , . \ \ 

Although concealed in its nature, we already know, the 
living force is capable of subduing the actions of chemical 
attraction, and bestowing on the molecules of bodies orders 
of combination altogether peculiar to itself. And since the 
bodies it forms, are any thing but homogeneous, it cannot 
be chemical in the sense of mineral chemistry. It has 
many things characteristic and peculiar: 1. It differs not 
only from all the other active forces of nature, in the move¬ 
ments and modifications, it offers to matter, but is capable 
of becoming quiescent in death, while these forces act 
onward forever without any intermission. 2. It alone be¬ 
stows on matter those forms or constitutions, which can 
develop and excite the activity of intelligence. All the 
bodies it evolves through the whole zoological calendar, 


NECESSITY FOR A NEW CLASSIFICATION. 113 

exhibit shades more or less distinct of this precious quality 
or nature. 3. It is transmitted from one body to another, 
by the intervention of sexes. 4. While the other forces dis¬ 
play their phenomena in all bodies, it can act only on a 
definite portion of the terrestrial matter, which appears to 
have been set apart originally orgcinificible , as proven by 
the organic detrita not being found below in the primitive 
formations. 5. According to our sacred philosophy, its 
activity one day resuscitated, it will gather up all our dust, 
scattered on both sides of the flood ; and present the whole 
race alive at once, to the hands of the judicative Creator. 

Is it spiritual or material? We see everywhere a grada¬ 
tion and variety of the same sort of existence. How infinite 
are the forms of matter, of minds! For what reason have 
philosophers limited the Divine creation to the use of only 
two sorts of natures? May there not exist a gradation of 
the entia , as well as of forms, in nature’s great body? The 
world now being composed of only two substances , all its 
discrepant phenomena are arranged into two great classes, 
spiritual and material. May not future research prove this 
an error, and show’ many of the phenomena, with which 
we are familiar, are referable to physical agents, which are 
neither spiritual nor material; and which form a class of their 
own? 

For the want of such knowledge, actions, properties the 
most contradictory are attributed to the same agent.—A 
stone, for instance, drops from a tower, and describes a 
straight line towards the earth’s centre. The spaces be¬ 
tween us and the fixed stars, are sufficiently roomy for our 
planets, taking the wrong course, to w r ander forever. They 
are guided annually in equable velocity, through nearly the 
same routes. Their guide , so skilful in shaping their course, 
is one only of the properties of matter. Since nothing can 
act but w 7 here it is, this property operating at such vast dis¬ 
tances, must be supposed to irradiate all over the interstellary 
spaces, and be omnipresent, yet located in each astral body. 
But matter is stupid; and we may suppose were each of 
these great bodies organized and elevated to the state of 


114 


ORGANIZATION AND LIFE. 


intellectual humanity, as the ancient sages taught,* the 
amount of intelligence thus developed could not do more 
than we attribute to senseless gravity. 

The cause, which describes a straight line in the stone, 
and a curved one in the planets, must be universal. But 
no solid reason can be given why the stone does not describe 
some other than a straight line toward the earth. And, if 
the centrifugal force be an essential property of matter, it 
ought to manifest its activity in the stone, or the bodies 
which compose planets, as well as in planets themselves. 
The force, which sustains all bodies about their periphery, 
and that which turns them about the sun, cannot be the same. 

Here, by a sort of compulsion, we feel, of referring all 
natural phenomena to either spiritual or material causes, 
matter, ubiquitary in its properties , is made to approach 
close to some of the perfections of the Divinity. One day, 
truth may admit of a nearer approach; and they may look 
on us, as we now look on those, who explained so many 
things by nature’s u abhorrence of a vacuum .” 

We know it was once believed there were hut four ele¬ 
ments. Under better methods of investigation, all these, 
except one, fire, have been proved to be compound bodies; 
and the number of elements raised to about fifty-seven. Iri 
like manner, hereafter, beings may admit of decomposition; 
and what we now call spiritual or material, may be shown 
to belong to a class of existence distinct from them both. 
Gravity, the polar forces, heat, electricity; galvanism, light, 
molecular affinity, the organizing energy, may all form, in 
their substances equally physical, separate classes, as mind 
and matter now do. 

What favors this idea is, in each we observe a marked 

* In his book, Be usu partium, Galen writes,—I Anglicise the passage,— 
“ If, in a being composed of flesh and blood, as man, we admire such a high 
degree of intelligence, what must this intelligence be in those vast celestial 
bodies, the stars, the sun and moon?” The same opinion was evidently- 
entertained by Hippocrates, his illustrious prototype, written in the book Be 
carnibus autprincipiis, in the words of his translator, Et videtur sane mihi 
id quod calidum, (thermon,) vocamus, immortale esse et cuncta intelligere et 
videre et scire omnia turn praesentia, turn futura. 


NECESSITY FOR A NEW CLASSIFICATION. 115 

peculiarity.—Mind, as I have noticed, displays its pheno¬ 
mena only in organized matter; it is active nowhere else; 
the vital energy in the acts of organization. Caloric or 
heat animates all bodies, but offers something peculiar to 
each, in what is called their specific capacity; and in its 
latent and active states. Electricity, galvanism, the polar 
forces, observe laws somewhat similar to caloric, but ap¬ 
pear to be more essentially located or resident in certain 
forms of matter. Molecular affinity has two modes, attrac¬ 
tion and repulsion. The sun is the great treasure of our 
light and gravity; the former has special manifestations of 
activity; the latter, though universal in all bodies, is never 
equal in force in the same quantities, except the distances 
be equal. These are the prime forces which agitate the 
world, which move in all its revolutions, and are known 
mostly to be gaseous or tenuous substances. Struck with 
their essential activity, Newton and Descartes, to account 
for the action of gravity, filled with such the spaces in 
heaven. 

Already some confusion is being felt, in co-ordinating the 
great abundance and variety in nature, into only two groups. 
If gravity, for instance, be an universal, essential property 
of matter, light, all these prime movers, contemn its laws; 
and yet the same sciences, which hold these substances im¬ 
ponderable , class them with body, although devoid of an 
essential constituent. We may suspect them all to be agents 
neither spiritual nor corporeal. 

The admission of a greater variety of active natures, 
would enrich our philosophical nomenclature, and tend to a 
more luminous order in our ideas. An independent, physi¬ 
cal cause for life and mind once generally admitted, good 
physiologists would directly connect their respective pheno¬ 
mena with these causes. They would no longer refer the 
acts of intelligence to the brain, nor the composition of living 
bodies to chemical or physico-chemical principles, in imita¬ 
tion of those w T ho formerly explained the functions by me¬ 
chanical, hydrostatic laws. Physiology, noble physiology! 
would then articulate in a clear, intelligible language; and its 


116 


PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND MIND. 


history do longer be an everlasting tomb-stone, pointing to 
the errors and wild aberrations of the human mind. 




CHAPTER VI. 

ORGANIC, MATERIAL SUBORDINATION OR PHYSICAL CONDITIONS, 

AND MIND. 

Grat confusion, dissonance, and indecision reign in most 
all systematic treatises on the mind: never-failing proof, that 
truth is unsafe, unsettled, out on the held of war; and that 
the day is to be won, in the great conflict with error. 

What is mind? A thousand mingled voices answer; an¬ 
tiquity and modern time, at once, are vocal. You hear it 
from Meonides, seated with his harp in the bowers of Para¬ 
dise, singing by the side of the Muses. You are told from 
the gardens of Tusculum and Stagira; the porch of Zeno: 
the groves of the Academics; the flowery retreats of Epi¬ 
curus; from the temples of Vishnu and Menu, Isis and 
Ozymandias; from the shades of the green oaks of the 
Druids. Thebes pours it through her hundred gates of 
bronze; Jerusalem utters its true destiny. 

You hear not the same voice, the same thing. They tell 
you, “we have erected magnificent altars to Truth, dedi¬ 
cated statues, garlands; instituted rights, ceremonies, that 
she may admit us into her sacred presence. Her temples 
and worship have stood, while time has w T asted.” And her 
instructions are, “The mind is of a most excellent nature, 
an emanation of the supreme intelligence,—of the eternal 
circular fire,—which comprehends all things, past as present, 
and reigns in the Empyrseum. It is a spark struck off from 
this Fire, which mourns its banishment here in the terrestrial 
prison of the body.” “ Mind is only a more excellent and 
subtle form of matter composed of primitive corpuscles.” 
“ It is the essence of thinking-.” 

O 



GENERALITIES. 


117 


If we subtract what we find in the ancients, on this sub¬ 
ject, from the moderns, the remainder will stand in very great 
disproportion; and more especially so, when we consider the 
almost sudden explosion of knowledge recently, on every 
topic interesting to our nature. But we cannot here run all 
over Greece, Italy, Arabia, India, and Egypt, sketching the 
great picture of the mind; nor pursue the flight and progress 
of letters, after they were transferred from the East to the 
nations of Western Europe, seeking the causes, which have 
retarded its knowledge. 

After this transfer, it is sufficient for us to notice, that a 
single topic in dialectics, in itself of no consequence,— 
whether oar coinplex ideas are real existences or only nomi¬ 
nal*— occupied almost exclusively for five hundred years, the 
human mind. Europe, now the theatre of investigation, Dr. 
Oudard of Orleans, or the Abbot de St. Martin de Tournay, 
with his literary chieftains arrayed on the one side; John, 
Robert of Paris, Ockham or Ocham, Roscelin, Duns Scotus, 
Albertus Magnus, T. Aquinas,—on the other, tottered, dur¬ 
ing this long period, the intellectual firmament over the 
bowed head of all the other sciences. 

After the reformation of learning in the hands of Bacon, 
some solid progress in intellectual physics might have been 
expected. But philosophers again turned their faces toward 
Greece, looked for what they could find on this science in 
Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Carneades—the great masters and 
models—took up their route of study, copied from them, or 
modified their ideas, and presented them in new dress. 

Thus they contemplated, more the nature of the mind 
itself, than its phenomena, and the peculiar circumstances 
under which they are manifested. 

The despotism of opinion, therefore, reign of system, 
natural difficulty of the subject, and illusory methods of 
research, may be assigned as retarding causes. The latter 
has, probably, acted much the most powerfully of them all. 

* For a historical account of this question, see Hallam’s View of the 
State of Europe during the Mid. Ages.—-Vol. iv. p. 385; and Mackintosh’s 
Prog, of Ethical Philos. 


10* 


118 


PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND MIND. 


Not less agitating than that of the Nominalists and Realists, 
another question, which marks all philosophico-historic time, 
comes to torment this study,— is the mind spiritual or mate¬ 
rial? On the one or the other of these views of its nature, all 
investigation, in all ages, has been instituted and conducted, 
while the sage precept of Bacon, Vere scire est per causas 
scire , has been unknown or neglected. To minds situated 
like ours—dependent upon a material mechanism for all its 
manifestations—this Baconian method of study can alone 
be natural, and must lead on to success. And we venture 
to say, had the labors of Descartes, Hobbes, Buffier, Leib¬ 
nitz, Kant, Spinosa, Hartley, Malebranche, Locke, Condillac, 
Destutt-Tracy, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Stewart, Brown,— 
been conducted on this method, intellectual philosophy, at 
this day exalted, had enjoyed the public confidence. 

A thing unfortunate! The minority, who consider all the 
mental phenomena will admit of just explanation without 
the admission of a principle distinct from matter, have been 
successful, all periods, in exciting to their opposition, the 
balance, who would think and write. Thus discussion de- 
naturized, has been thrown into the wrong channels to tra¬ 
verse ages, expending its main forces on spiritualism and 
materialism ,* which, wrought up like iEtna and Vesuvius, 
sleep occasionally in the noiseless sweep of time, and then 
pour out on mankind the uproar of their warring elements. 
Truth, sensitive truth, affrighted, fled before the eagles of 
the crest-shaking God, and the thick clouds of Olympic 

* The contest for victory between these two hypotheses, a few ages since, 
rose to its greatest fury. From the violence, and the oddity of the weapons 
of argument they used, the imagination passes easily to the combats of Mil¬ 
ton’s Angels, who, 

—“The neighb’ring hills uptore 
So hills amid the air encountered hills, 

Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire, 

That underground they fought in shade.” 

Baxter brought into the field of metaphysics against the school of Baring- 
ton, the whole artillery of the mathematics, which he considered a most ma- 
terialo-perclous weapon. Yid. his Inquiry into the nature of the human 
soul—passim. 


GENERALITIES. 


119 


dust; yet on no subject has philosophy ever wooed her 
more, or sought her grace. Mankind, I may say, seem born 
at variance on the nature of the mind; its historic aspect 
is that of the tented field, for whose arena all ages have fur¬ 
nished armies. The reason is obvious. Men have always 
felt the deepest interest in a future state of existence. To 
the receiving of revealed truth they have too often preferred 
to deduce it from their reason or imagination; religion as¬ 
sociated has lent her strong hand, and going beyond herself, 
not jinfrequently administered alone the fuel to keep boiling 
the hot caldron of war. 

In the actual era, mental science is undergoing a decided 
change. The physiologists have asserted their rights, and 
claim it as belonging exclusively to their study. They re¬ 
gard all the intellectual acts, as constituting a peculiar order 
of vital phenomena. Their titles must be indisputable. 
They, however, contemplate chiefly, only those aspects of 
the mind, the organic, material mechanism of which is the 
most manifest, as the various sensations, their influence on 
the different parts of the living organism, the changes in 
the order and intensity of the mental phenomena by age, 
disease. They, therefore, do not occupy the whole field, 
and appear willing still to abandon the rational or logical 
mind to the metaphysicians. But if all the mental acts are 
directly dependent upon the living structure, which can 
modify them, and which constitutes absolutely the true 
measure of their manifestations, ought not the entire study 
of the mind be included in physiology, and constitute one 
of its great divisions? The progress of living thought seems 
tending this way; many good philosophers have already 
proclaimed the impossibility, that psychology can ever ad¬ 
vance, separated from the knowledge of the living, mani¬ 
festing structure. It is probable, therefore, mind will cease 
to form an abstract or absolute science in itself, as it has 
done; and that the labors of Locke, of all those who have 
made of it a solitary study, will soon show in the light of 
posterity, only as literary curiosities. 


120 


PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND MIND. 


SECTION I. 

THE LAST TERMS TO WHICH WE CAN REDUCE THE IDEA OF THE UNDER¬ 
STANDING—DIFFICULTY OF THE SUBJECT-PSYCHOGENY. 

Like all the other great, active forces, mind has its appro¬ 
priate place of activity assigned it in the universe. Shel¬ 
tered from the crude action of external matter, existing, as I 
may express it, in solitary grandeur in this respect, it ope¬ 
rates— is active —only through the intervention of the living 
organism. This organism modifies all the material move¬ 
ments without, which are the causes of all its external 
sensations; and, in the encephalon, offers immediately the 
conditions of all its other modes of manifestation. This 
connection and dependence upon the organic laws, through 
whose efforts it holds intercourse with the external world, 
elevate it to the great summit, and constitute it the focus of 
the general action of the whole. Placed in the torrent of 
the universal forces of the world, and subsisting, as I may 
say, on nature’s whole strength—migratory heir of another 
life—it was evolved pure and fair at first; was honored at 
its birth, and bore off the prize, the portrait of the Divinity. 

The last terms, therefore, to which we can reduce the 
idea of intelligence are, 1.—The plastic or organic force 
clothing matter with new forms and properties amazingly 
diversified, and peculiar to itself; combining these forms for 
the achievement of definite ends; compounding further all 
of them into a whole of reciprocal activity—a living crea¬ 
ture—endowed with susceptibilities of being peculiarly 
affected, and of acting in a specific manner in the presence 
or through the stimulations of all inorganic, foreign bodies:— 

2. Matter co-ordinated in space into a system of reciprocal 
excitement about a common axis, pouring forth a regular 
series of efforts, which stimulate to activity the new proper¬ 
ties or principles of motion originated by organization:—and 

3. A spiritual* agent responding to the vital stimulations, 
whose various reactions are neatly the mind itself. 

* We know nothing absolutely of the essence of beings. The names of 


IDEA OF MIND. 


121 


Thus movements originating in matter, produce other 
movements in the organism, which pass to the encephalic 
focus, and become stamped with the seal of mind; thence they 
can radiate to the separate organs, and excite them, as in all 
the wants, and passions; or return again to affect the objects 
whence they first rose, as in volition. Here, then, is the 
mysterious circle of action, of antecedence and sequence, of 
dependence and successive causation, in which are evolved 
the mental phenomena in the midst of matter and displays of 
the organic forces. We can plainly behold the circle, but not 
how the line drawn round, unites at the different points. De¬ 
riving the materials of its active being from so many sources, 
from such distant quarters, how immense is evolvescent mind, 
but not more so, than the transmaterial theatre of its future 
destination ! 

It is the variety of materials or subordinate agents en¬ 
gaged in its evolution, and the multifariousness of their 
actions and influences—some creating the conditions indis¬ 
pensable to its activity, others exciting it to effort—which 
perplex and make its study so difficult. In this circle 
of immeasurable diameter, of alternate antecedence and 
sequence, of successive steps toward the physical existence 
of intelligence, all the phenomena are material or vital, until 
we arrive at the last series, which only are intellectual. 
Where, in the circle, is the shadowy boundary between what 
is purely material , vital , mental? 

Nature has bound the three in one, great, indissoluble 
action, as she has done all her other movers, none acting in 
solitude, but acting only to influence its fellows. See, dark¬ 
winged night for ever chases the panting light, the burning 
axles of Aurora never cooling; merciless winter with icicles, 

O' t 

the sweet-breathing, flowery spring; the earth finishing her 
circle in Aries or Libra, does not stop; the year coming 

all language consequently, contrarily to what Hutcheson supposed for the 
primitive tongue, are not formed expressive of their natures, but only of our 
manner of seeing them—are arbitrary—and have no real foundations, but 
what exist in the mind itself contemplating them. Spiritual is a sacred term, 
and is warranted. 


122 


PHYSICAL CONDITIONS AND MIND. 


rapidly pursues the one going; the great cycles of time 
press on the great cycles; the generations of men and things, 
after generations. O Nature! where is thy house, thy home; 
can my eye catch its columnar glory? thy couch, the stilled 
chamber of thy rest? Where opens the dark abyss below r ; 
where terminate the actions and labors of thy great whole ? 
Thy bright years once supple on the azure pinions of solar 
light; where now shall I behold them outcast, folding up 
those beauteous pinions for the ivy and the dust ? and thy 
colossal cycles, which so long played in the blaze, and drunk 
at the solar font, where are they ? I behold the architectural 
monuments of Judea covered with brambles; imperial cities 
reduced to specks of red dust, which stain the ground in the 
wilderness; the pyramids and mighty columns of Osyman- 
dias scattered in the sands of Egypt, over w T hich they passed; 
but where is their sepulchre, or lie scattered their huge 
limbs and mouldering trunks? What am I? how narrow 
the limits, I can measure in thy great w^hole! Thy empires 
stretch away with space; I behold only the shadowy out¬ 
skirts. I can comprehend neither them, my vital structure, 
nor sentient mind. I am unknown to myself, beyond the 
reach of creeping, crawling thought. What am I in thy 
great whole? that thy God should “be mindful of me,” or 
blood of Heaven be spilt in my behalf; mystery still more 
mysterious! 

In the circle of consecutive movement, w r e contemplate, 
we can distinguish some of the actors, trace to a limited 
extent, and class some of their phenomena; but they will 
blend shadow with shadow, light with light, color alter 
color, until the changing aspect recedes beyond our mind’s 
most eager, anxious gaze. We will give an example. The 
sunbeams paint the image of an object on the retina; but 
we cannot distinguish between the image and the painting 
sunbeams. The vital properties present in the eye are 
solicited to effort by this first process of painting; an impres¬ 
sion, certainly not a picture, passes from the eye to the pan¬ 
optic centre; a new and more extensive series of movements 
is excited; in these movements, the one begun by the rays 


I 


NOOGENY. 


123 


oi light, becomes now an intellectual phenomenon or percep¬ 
tion. 

In this example of psychogeny, the first phenomenon in 
the series, the picture, is due to the laws purely material, the 
only agency of the vital laws being the action of the optic 
muscles, adjusting properly the visual globes. The eye is 
passive, capable of the same result exercised from the head, 
and imitable by optic glasses. The impression thus produced 
in the retina, is transmitted by the optic nerves. So far the 
progressive movement is regulated by, and wholly due to the 
vital laws. The encephalon, in its turn solicited, reacts; this 
reaction still is purely vital, but not the sequence. It has 
passed over to another order of phenomena; obeys new 
dynamical laws; can be remembered, compared with its 
fellow perceptions; aye, falls into new relations with its 
Creator, “ who judges the thoughts,” itself a thought. 

It passed the line, which separates the two empires, but 
vision receding in the constantly varying hues was lost. We 
did not see the gate, which opens and shuts between our 
mortal and immortal. And, since the vital organs concerned 
enjoy fully some of the active properties of inorganic matter, 
which must exert a bearing on their functions, the boundary 
line, which separates the inorganic and living worlds, over 
which these phenomena play, is not less obscure than that 
of life and intelligence. 

We see nature combines, multiplies in her action. What 
at this moment is effect, the next is cause, what was just 
corporeal is now vital , the next step, intellectual , the product 
constantly assuming increased volume and variety, until she 
winds up all as I have said, in one great, universal movement. 
Here you behold the prints of her footsteps, there the traces 
are more obscure; yonder they vanish, but she advances on. 
—Thought, daring, hair-brained thought! pursues her over 
ground, where the glistering dew-drop hangs unbrushed; 
writes out, as our systems of philosophy show, long, circum¬ 
stantial chronicles of her ways, operations, and doings. She 
comes the critic, judges, disowns, condemns, dashing the 
unfaithful picture. 


124 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


O Nature! the fathers of thought worshipped thee an 
uncreated Divinity. Their children mortalizing thy perfec¬ 
tions, have made thee only the linguist of things. The 
tongues of men are thy continual, familiar habitation. Some 
boast of having heard thy voice wooing: some, of having 
seen thee, thou dark-robed , nimble , light-footed , invisible! But 
wast thou there, when Lavoisier undid the water; Cuvier 
saw thy ways in living organization; Davy let loose thy fires 
on the tortured alkalies; when Harvey first saw thy tortuous 
course of the blood, Franklin enticed, and bridled the rude, 
wild thunder; or when Newton touched thy rolling spheres? 
Let us rather say, thou hadst been, but wast not there. 


CHAPTER VII. 

INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS,—OR MxANNER OF ACTION OF THE VA¬ 
RIOUS DYNAMICAL FORCES* OF DIFFERENT CLASSES OF PERCEP¬ 
TIONS AND IDEAS. 

•; • • t ‘ ' 

/ ^ / \ j v 

We have just contemplated the excitement or picture 
painted on the retina; the consequent excitement of the 
optic nerves, and the cephalic centre. The three differ in 
their properties and anatomical forms; and the manner of 
their action consecutive. The rays terminated their career 
in the retina; the motion they brought underwent, to us, 
three mutations from the three sorts of properties, and be¬ 
came a perception. None of the three, in the healthy state 
is capable of originating, in itself, this consecutive move¬ 
ment ; they can only transmit it already begun. Light, then, 
which can alone commence it, is as essential in the produc¬ 
tion of such mental phenomena, as the brain or any one of 
the series of actors. We see no proportion between the four 

* These terms consecrated to the mathematics are objectionable. But the 
metaphysicians assure us, the words designative of corporeal existence, fur¬ 
nish all the prototypes of those used to express mental phenomena, and we 
must be content. 



I #t- i 

FIRST ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 125 

actors, no points of contact; their dynamia is a profound 
secret; we are only conscious of the result. 

Let us pursue further the winding course of the sunbeams, 
m the sequence, after they strike the rouages or living wheel- 
work of the organism. The dynamical properties of per¬ 
ceptions thus produced, and of ideas remembered, are of 
two orders. In the one, the motive force will display itself 
on the ideas in the mind modifying them; in the other, on 
the various tissues and apparatuses of the organism altering 
their functions. This last order is again divisible, accord¬ 
ingly as the greatest intensity of the action falls on the sepa¬ 
rate organs. The explosion of this impetuous force on ideas 
in the mind, on the organic tissues, and consequent move¬ 
ment, are sometimes truly great and wonderful, producing 
instant death. The susceptibilities of mortals, however, 
with respect to it, are extremely various. 

We will now select objects, the dynamical properties of 
whose perceptions, will exemplify the two orders of move¬ 
ment, I have mentioned : And first we take one, which has 
no particular relation to any of our wants and passions It 
will manifest movement by attracting the correlative and 
cotemporary ideas, and traverse all geographical space and 
annals of time. 

SECTION I. 

HISTORY-MOTION-OF A PERCEPTION OF THE FIRST DYNAMICAL 

ORDER. 

It is the honeysuckle, I see—wild flower of early spring, 
breathing delicious fragrance, known to the Muses. 

1. I think of my early days, when I was wont to build 
little green houses in the hedge; the floors I laid with white 
pebbles; and gathered these flowers on the banks of the 
Saluda to decorate them; that I might attract the birds to 
come thither, and raise their families, my little friends, in 
the nests I had constructed. 

These reminiscences come not alone; they bring with 


ll 


126 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


them the very life and presence of those, who participated 
with me these pleasures. The dusky veil of time, wrought 
with shadows and oblivion, parts asunder.—I behold them. 
They speak with the voice of other years. “They come 
rushing by with all their deeds; 57 like Ossian’s, “ the awful 
faces of other times, looking down from the clouds of Crow- 
ly,” they come. I contemplate their various fortunes ; the 
different points at which they reached the grave, or the 
different countries to which they emigrated, scattered for¬ 
ever. 

2. Or admiring I gaze on the beauty of the flower. The 
Boetian Narcissus, the beautiful boy of fable comes; who, 
for the folly of his self-admiration, was changed into a flower. 
I am running over the pretty things said of him by Ovid and 
Pausanias, when the gay little fellow Astyanax arrests me, 
and with his mother Andromache, conducts me from the 
house of Hector, through a private, subterraneous passage, 
to the gardens of Priam. Hither he was accustomed to 
urge his mother, that he might gather flowers to propitiate 
his royal grandfather. The bells are ringing in the palace, 
for it’s the day a private family dinner is given; and the 
venerable pair dine with their children. Heotor is coming 
to join his family. Hecuba in maternal dignity is seated at 
the table. Her beautiful daughters, Ilione, Polyxena, Creusa 
and Cassandra approach in long robes of flowing white, 
decorated with transparent shells, emblems of their virgin 
purity. Their veils of snow, gifts of Cyprian Venus, and 
touched with the tints of storm-riding Iris, half conceal their 
faces, and whiten where they come. They enter and join 
her side. Hipponous, Antiphon, Polytes, Troilus, and Hec¬ 
tor occupy the seats. Priam comes smiling to behold his 
happy family. With the weight of empire, his long hair 
curls white to grace his shoulders. The little boy Astyanax, 
in spite of his mother’s reproof, will be near him. He re¬ 
ceives his spoiled grandson on his knee. 

3. Suddenly another idea comes with fierce, antagonizing 
force. The thunder of the distant artillery rings in my ear. 


FIRST ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


127 


I have an engagement to deliver an oration to-day, for it is 
the fourth of July. 

In a moment I am scouring about Boston, in Charlestown, 
or on the summit of Bunker's hill, amid the fury, the shouts, 
the tumult of battle, and torrents of flowing blood. The 
picture—august shades—moving scene of the revolution— 
is passing before me; while the Tecta alta or lofty houses of 
Priam, the tasty gardens, and the feast, drop back into obli¬ 
vion. 

But for the artillery, I might have eaten some of the bread 
of Ceres; tasted the wine, the clustering grapes ; and gazed 
on the lovely Cassandra, born to be the mother of kings. Or 
I might have been upbraiding the treachery and insidious¬ 
ness of the Greeks—the cruelty of Agamemnon 
surveying the great wooden horse within the Trojan walls 
• • •••••••• 

the adventurous Helen, borne on the shoulders of Paris 
swimming across the Hellespont .... 

In these phenomena, we observe the energy of the uplifted 
wing of human thought; the strong elective attraction of 
ideas of things, that are, have been, may be; nay, possible to 
be. We may observe likewise the rapidity of this attraction, 
which lets the mind through from object to object, existent 
or non-existent, realizing, feeling by conception all alike. 

It is by this attraction, attribute of all ideas, the mind looks 
on the boundary of space as a very little thing, and on that 
of time, as nothing; over which it so constantly finds occa¬ 
sion to pass. It is to the activity of this force, subject to be 
influenced by the will, which is memory , all the changes, that 
occur in our perceived impressions, are due; and from which 
new ideas arise. Armed with it, our thought holds familiar 
intercourse, where the day has never shone; or retraces the 
path, where the noisy wheels of time have rolled, and their 
lights long extinguished :—plays off its excursions in imi¬ 
tation of that eternal movement, which is to carry it through 
its Creator’s empire. 

We have just traced the course and dynamical action of 
the idea of the honeysuckle let in by vision. By one leap, 



128 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


we have seen, it carried us back into the first days of our 
existence, and first theatre of our humble history. Attracted 
there by the idea of another flower, which bloomed on the 
land of fable, at another moment, we were transported be¬ 
yond all history to the age of Narcissus, who escaped sepul¬ 
ture by being changed into a flower. Thence, through the 
love of flowers contracted by Astyanax, because he found 
by them he could please his grandfather, we were conducted 
to the mansion of Hector, the royal gardens, and festive hall 
of the king of Troy. 

Here the movement, excited by the picture of the honeysuc¬ 
kle supposed to be painted on the retina, just as it was striking 
the great torrent of Homer’s song, was suddenly and effectu¬ 
ally arrested by another idea darting from memory. The last 
series of the phenomena of this flower terminated at the table 
of Priam and his children, where a new direction was given, 
and a new series begun, which planted our feet, in a mo¬ 
ment, with Washington on Bunker’s hill. 

Excepting the series which brought us to the Revolution, 
the phenomena with their force, we have contemplated, play 
off from us into the distance of space and time, scarcely touch 
the living wheel-work at any point, but the encephalon, 
without whose agency there can be no thought. 

SECTION II. 

SECOND DYNAMICAL ORDER. 

Let us now select objects for perception, the reverse of 
the one above ;—or of the second dynamical order, the action 
and influence of whose perceptions, will turn back upon us; 
radiate the living organs, change their rhythm of movement; 
exalt, depress, annihilate; create pleasure, joy, melancholy, 
sorrow, grief and death, sudden or lingering. 

This order I have said is divisible, accordingly as the 
action radiates more directly, and expends its main force on 
particular organs. So great, however, is the facility of 
transmission, and the unity of all living action, in many 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


129 


instances, it is difficult to distinguish these organs. Those, 
which repair the system and supply its wastes; those sub¬ 
jected to the trisplanchnic or nervous, ganglionic system of 
anatomists; and the voluntary muscles, we know, form the 
principal seats. 

This order, therefore, admits of four divisions or sub-or¬ 
ders, which achieve four classes of important indispensable 
ends in our economy. 

1. Conservation by alimentation of food ; 

2. Conservation by love or re-production; 

3. The securing aid from our fellow-creatures; 

4. The securing and maintaining our proper relations 
with the external world. We will give short examples of 
each.* 


EXAMPLE I. 

The object we take is some favorite fruit or article of 
food—the eye of a person hungry, beholding. 

The consecutive action of the illuminating rays passing 
to the encephalic centre, touch the same points, and are 
accompanied by the same phenomena, as in the case of the 
dower. But the perception will not manifest a strong dis¬ 
position to associate with its fellow ideas; stir about in ob¬ 
livion; rear up the dilapidated images of things quiet in the 
great shadow behind us; and soar in the infinite expanse of 
mind. It will curve, turn back to expend its force on the 
organism. The effort of the encephalic focus, which, so far 
as the vital laws are concerned, constitutes it a perception, 
through the immutable relations or laws food sustains, trans- 
mits an excitement to the respective members of the nutri¬ 
tive apparatus. The brain with the spinal marrow, the 
great main-spring of all the functions, and the nerves, are 
the media of the transmission of this excitement; and in- 

. f 

* A monograph written with competent ability, on these two dynamical 
orders of perceptions and ideas, embracing completely the four subdivisions of 
the latter, would comprise the complete philosophy of human nature; and be 
invaluable. 

11* 


130 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


nervation, the manner. Thus the blood is accumulated 
more or less in each of these members, because the nervous 
energy or innervation is more active; the sensation of hun¬ 
ger becomes more acute; the salivary, gastric, pancreatic 
and biliary secretions are poured out abundantly. 

Here the object of vision is nutritive. By an inviolable 
law of creation, the perpetuity of life is connected with food, 
as the means. The consecutive movement begun in the 
eyes of the beholder, reaches perception; and by this law 
is reflected by the brain perceiving through the nerves to 
the digestive organs, producing in them the conditions ne¬ 
cessary to assimilation, or use of the food. 

The whole of this series is physiological, except one link, 
the perception; and the physiology extends much beyond 
the central organ. Thought is just born, and extinguished; 
the dynamical property of the perception of food taking this 
new direction, and expending its force on the assimilating 
organs. If you say, the food is the appropriate stimulus to 
induce these preparatory steps to assimilation, it does it, 
as I have said, through its perception, and that if a man 
asleep could take nourishment or eat unconsciously, it would 
do him the same good; it may be replied, the experiment 
can never be healthfully made, and but for this law, a man 
or animal would never seek his food or enjoy it, and if food, 
in the actual presence of the organs excites them, its per¬ 
ception can do the same thing. I may add;—this primary 
law which co-ordinates the brain thinking,* and the repara- 
tory apparatus into one movement, is the source of the largest 
half of human and animal industry, and mother of the in- 
dustrious arts. 

* Brain thinking—with us an abridged expression, signifying the inva¬ 
riableness of the antecedence of the cerebral effort to the mental phenomena; 
—condition in the present order of the world, essential to the active life of 
our spiritual nature. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


131 


EXAMPLE II. 

Mechanism of the sentiment of Conservative hove. 

Man, before woman, existed in the earth. Most of the 
legends of early people, who preserved the recollections of 
the first events of the world, contain pitiful stories of his 
sufferings, and the life he led. “A prey to perpetual soli¬ 
tude, dejected and sorrowful, he wandered from place to 
place inconsolable. He loved and wept, loved tenderly, and 
yet there existed no visible object of his affection. In his 
dreams only he saw the image of what he loved; but on 
w r aking it would vanish from him. He abandoned himself 
to ceaseless regrets, and refused all nourishment; until worn 
down by his sufferings and hardships, he invoked death at 
the hands of the supreme Numen.” 

Primeval woman sprung from the heart of man, to which 
she tends. She was seen, felt, realized there before her 
birth; or, in the pre-established order of the world, she be¬ 
came a being distinct from him. But it was in the dark 
shade of embowering trees, where fell the noise of broken 
waters; amid the frolic of birds and flowers, man first met 
his companion, and erected his bridal altar. And it is still 
amid these sweet bright scenes, he is most apt to love. It 
was in the retreats of wave-sung, blooming Enna, the daugh¬ 
ter of Ceres was loved. 

In her he felt a new sensation, the sensation of beauty. 
The consecutive movement falls, and is expended on the 
organs subjected to the nervous system of nutritive life. It 
touches the living wheel-work at many tender points; but its 
greatest force is lavished on the tissues consecrated immedi¬ 
ately to the maintenance of the race. 

At first he saw her only through his mind: he now be¬ 
holds her through his organization. The light of a higher, 
brighter world hastens to fall upon her. “ Her bosom is the 
heaving snow;” “she is born of the white foam of the 
waves.” He has been touched by beauty; he lifts his eye 
to fairer climes than the earth, for the origin of this new 


132 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


force lie has felt. He is humiliated in her presence. His 
bosom is filled with admiration and homage; she lives in 
his thought. By an irresistible impulse he is precipitated 
into her presence; and worships in her an order of excel¬ 
lence* higher than himself. 

Thus man adoring is permitted to imitatef the acts of his? 
divine Creator, in the reproduction of a being like himself. 
Thus nature allures him to live out of his tomb after he is 
dead; and fling his life to pass on the great torrent of ages. 

The gods of antiquity mostly sprung from mortal women. 
Animated, overpowered by this sense of beauty, men were 
led to suppose, they had given origin to an immortal race. 
We know not yet this beauty in its essence and locality, of 
which woman alone can plant in our bosom the sentiment. 
It must appertain to the highest order of excellence—an 
attribute of the Divinity—by which He perpetuates a race, 
the individuals of which, He has doomed to perish. 

Many philosophers have satisfied themselves that they 
have profounded the origin of the sentiment of beauty. 
But a meditated examination of their labors must fail of 
conviction. Count Buffon, who regarded man and woman 
as forming but one being in the hands of nature, struck with 
the mysteriousness, created for its perception a sixth sense. 
His genius permitted him to see nature with new eyes, but 
this peculiar sense is as obscure as the thing it was intended 
to explain. 

Abelard, Tasso, Petrarch,—loved till the end of their days 
those who first inspired them with this sense of beauty; and 
loved them only. Is the object of nature—the end of beauty 
—to annihilate the personal identity of two individuals of dif¬ 
ferent sex, and secure their solitary union for life? The 

* Paracelsus—Pope—have left monuments of their hatred to women. 
They could not behold them through this nervous mirror of nutritive life, 
abnormal , untrue in them to nature. 

t If, according to the Orphic verses, love or the beauty of the divine ideas , 
which struck Plato, was the first principle of all things, it is love, we see, in 
mortal bosoms, which still originates fresh life, is the prime mover—great 
main-spring of ages. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


133 


facts librate for and against it. Our sacred books make it 
a duty. Plato,* Miss Mary Wollstonecraft,f M. Virey,f 
admit there is a polygamy of nature. 


EXAMPLE III. 

The object is an amiable female in distress. 

She has just been shipwrecked in her affections — the 
three-fourths of the being of her sex. The ebon hues of her 
pendent veil, the deep black drapery of her sorrow, give a 
hallowed and unearthly aspect to the faded snow of life. 
Her dress answers to the dark clouds, which hang on her 
tuturity, and to the complexion of her soul, which forced out 
of life, has taken refuge in the tomb. Her figure a little 
inclined forward, her march is slow and steady. It is “ the 
narrow house” covered by the shade of some elms and branch¬ 
ing oaks; when twilight is stealing abroad, she approaches 
alone. Her gait grows unsteady—she totters—advances— 
stops—advances again. Deep irrepressible sighs murmur 
up from her broken keart; respiration grows convulsive; 
she falls in incipient death near the holy spot. As on the 
grass, the dew-drops gather on her locks to trace now the 
cold paths of her exhausted tears; and her soul visits, for a 
time, the dear, dreamy land whence her love is gone. 

The brain perceiving such an object, will transmit the 
secondary or consecutive movement to the organs under the 
same nervous dependence as in the two last examples. But 
this movement will fall with the heaviest weight on very dif¬ 
ferent tissues ; those of the thorax and abdomen will consti¬ 
tute essentially the operative theatre. We know this only 
as an irreducible fact of our nature, understood by those even 
who lived early enough to frame language—by all antiquity 

—and maintained by a host of modern philosophers. 

• » ' • 

* Republic. 

t Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 

X Ilistoire Naturelle du Genre Humain; et Die. des Scien. Med, art. 
Polygamie. 


134 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


If the active theatre of the three movements be different, 
the phenomena are different. The normal excitement, in 
the first case, where the object was nutritive, in all its ten¬ 
dencies, is to the conservation of individual life; in the 
second, to that of the life of the species ; but in this third, it 
is directly to its destruction. The phenomena of the two 
first are purely physiological; of the third, essentially patho¬ 
logical. 

We know the nervous tissue, in its various forms, is the 
starting point of all living actions, and the agent, which sus¬ 
tains, and combines them in the different apparatuses of the 
economy.—That the nervous power illy definable, is the uni¬ 
versal stimulus to the excitability of all the voluntary mus¬ 
cles—and that in the senses, and all the nerves of relation, 
it is itself, which is excited. It is, therefore, both the exci- 
tans and the excitatum. "The share of action, and the reci¬ 
procal influence of the different members of the nervous 
system, as in the actions of the heart, arteries, capillaries, 
&c., since the days of Gorter, Haller, Whyt, till Dr. M. Hall, 
and the vivisectionists of our day, have continued to excite 
the profoundest interest and research. The recent labors of 
Bell, Lobstein,—have achieved something to advance our 
knowledge in psychologic neurology. But the heaviest 
shades still hang between our intellectual and pathetic na¬ 
tures, and obstruct the view. 

By the one part of this system, we hold communion with 
the world, and live out of ourselves; by the other, the rela¬ 
tions and influences of its various objects are peculiarly 
impressed upon us. It is through the triform ganglionic 
portion of this system, that the seal of our humanity is 
stamped upon us. It is through it alone we feel the ardor 
of religious devotion, pleasure, sorrow.—But for it, it never 
could have been said, 

Non ignara mali miseris succurere disco; 

nor as the early poets sung, had Niobe been converted into 
a stone through sorrow, from the loss of her children. 

Mankind have honored, done homage to the inspirations 
of this ganglionic sense; and those, who have disobeyed, 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 135 

been held as monsters. Cabanis the first gave to it the most 
beautiful development.* It is by its charming light, we 
behold the interesting, lovely object now before us—dilapi¬ 
dated—fallen in ruin untimely amid the rosy hours of her 
reasonable hopes. Her innocent heart was filled with the 
tender images of love ; her futurity was full of flowers. They 
have suddenly been torn from her. Is there a tear, this 
movement of which I speak will find it; a cup in us to hold 
sorrow, it will fill it. 

The reflected action of the encephalon, I have said, will 
fall on the thoracic and abdominal organs or phrenic centre. 
Hence the venerable expressions, u bowels of meraj — compas¬ 
sion .” From this centre, with different degrees of force, it 
radiates to affect the other parts of the organism. The two 
parts of the nervous system communicate at different points. 
Prochaska sustained, that the passions act on the heart- 
through the eighth pair of nerves. But the manner of 
achievement of the law, which co-ordinates the brain per¬ 
ceiving, and the phrenic centre into one action, must be 
conjectural, since the light does not shine so far. It is not 
improbable, the brain’s reflected movement reaches the in 
strument of the ganglionic sense, at more points than one. 
If, therefore, the brain must be affected for the mind’s per 
ception of an external object, the ganglionic nerves must 
likewise be affected, for its perception in the light of the 
passions. The passions or mental phenomena of the gangli¬ 
onic sense, accordingly, are more complicated than those of 
the external senses. If a man could subsist without this 
internal nervous system, all external objects were to him 
alike. He could neither know joy nor sorrow, love nor 
hatred, more than one born blind, does colors. For it is 
through this second sense alone, the mind feels the quali¬ 
ties of the objects. 

But if this movement, reflected to the phrenic centre, pro¬ 
duces the passions, the reaction of this centre on the brain, 
gives birth to all the delicious images, touching beautiful 
ideas of poetry, eloquence. Vauvenargues is right; “our 

* Rapports du phys. et mor. del’ homme. 


136 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


great thoughts come from the heart.” To augment the 
intensity, animate this phrenic reaction, Apollo came forth 
with his lyre; the fountain of Pindus flowed; the waters of 
Helicon broke forth from the Bcetian mount; the Muses 
were born on the serene top of Pierus; loved to walk in the 
Olympic blue; to wander through solitudes over woodlands, 
and Idalian groves, that they might catch what was soft and 
moving in nature, and fire mortal bosoms with the harmony 
of numbers. 

It is from this phrenic reaction, then, flows the deep foun¬ 
tain of all our moral nature. It is through it immediately, 
we feel pity; our tears flow at the sight of flowing tears;— 
that we participate in all the feelings of the dear, mournful 
object, we have here selected for an example.—She advances 
slowlv; we feel inclined to the same movement. Great de- 
bility marks each footstep; the same debility seizes upon 
us. She swoons near the grave of her lost spouse; our 
respiration grows impeded. 

The phrenic reaction expanding, reaches the nerves pre¬ 
siding over the nutrition of the eyes and complimentary 
organs. It excites the supplying arteries; the blood flows 
in increased quantity; the eyes redden; the stimulated la¬ 
chrymal glands pour out the tears. In the same manner, 
the blood is accumulated in the head, the thoracic, and ab¬ 
dominal viscera. The brain throbs; w T eight or pressure 
more or less great is felt in the epigastric region, arising, 
probably, from capillary stasis, and the peculiar sense of 
trisplanchnic nerves. From their weakened or unduly sti¬ 
mulated nerves, the intercostal muscles take on convulsive 
movements; the diaphragm heaves; respiration tends to 
impracticable. The heart participates lively in the great 
sphere of this disturbed ganglionic excitement; vibrates and 
impels the blood irregularly and with difficulty. 

General Phenomena. The skin has grown cooler; there 
is more or less chill; the general circulation has become 
slower. The voluntary muscles are weakened; the supply 
of nervous power has diminished. The appetite for food is 
lost; the function of nutrition has given way. The mind 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


137 


is more or less insensible to surrounding objects, is absorbed 
m one subject; the psychological functions are abnormal. 
The hands and feet are cold, but the head, eyes, hot; the 
epigastrium heavy and labouring, the thorax heaving, and 
the heart palpitating: there is derivation of the organic 
functions, showing where the blood and nervous energies 
are gone in excess. It is the brain, and the organs subjected 
to trisplanchnic animation, but especially those of the epi¬ 
gastrium and thorax, where the greatest intensity* of the 
action is going on, and sustained there by an accumulation 
of life’s prime movers. 

Thus the encephalon affected for the perception of a 
single object , reverberates the perceptive movement to the 
nutritive nerves; they radiate it through the organs over 
which they preside; the two portions of the nervous system 
respond energetically to each other. A storm rises in the 
living functions. How rapidly does it turn some pieces of 
our mortal machinery, how slow others! 

Of the law, which co-ordinates into one movement, the 
two portions of the great nervous system, the conjoint acts 
of which we call the passions I will offer some reflections 
as to the 

FINAL CAUSES. 

The active tendency, I have said, is unto death. In the 
writings of those who have recorded the moral and medical 
history of nations, the history of great pestilences, we see, 

* No wonder Lacaze, Bordeu, Bichat,—located the seat of the affections 
in the epigastric , more properly, phrenic centre, which many sages have 
regarded as “the immediate habitation of the soul.” So conspicuously, 
sensibly is this centre affected, in all the pathetic movements, that all an¬ 
tiquity, as I have said, was full of this idea. The divine philosophers made 
it synonymous with the understanding. “The heart,” says Job, “con- 
ceiveth mischief.” 

The error of the physiology of Bichat and those like him is, that they 
made the acts of this centre, the passions themselves, as they did those of 
the brain, the immediate mental phenomena, both being efforts purely of the* 
material organization. They left out the mind. 

t So far as the material organs are concerned. 

12 


138 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


to the affections, nay, to a single thought, thousands have 
fallen victims. At the moment his ideas were publishing to 
the world, a copy was brought to Copernicus; he pressed 
his immortal work to his bosom, and expired. The lover 
dies for joy leading his bride to the altar; the culprit, on 
receiving his reprieve. “ In this scourge from God to man, 
which threatened to destroy the whole human race/’ re¬ 
marks Diemerbroek,^ “many perished without being touch¬ 
ed by the disease.” Friendf has recorded a great variety of 
similar cases. One dies from fear, another from vexation. 

Like malaria, contagion, the variolous matter, war with¬ 
out the sword, national calamities, private misfortunes, are 
known to be energetic consumers of human life. The 
revolution and convulsions in France, of which Marmontel 
has drawn so animated a picture—those days so calamitous 
to the French, states M. Corvisart,} “ have furnished ample 
proof of the influence of the passions in exciting organic 
diseases in general, and those of the heart in particular.” 
Vast numbers died suddenly from apprehension; others 
perished lingeringly. The national amphitheatre of dis¬ 
section showed they had expired from aneurisms or ruptures 
of the heart, heart-broken, among whom females outnum¬ 
bered far. 

But the question before us to solve is— because I am sor¬ 
rowful ,, why do you feel sorrow ? The direct tendency of 
the law is, to multiply the sorrow by combining or drawing 
others into the sphere of its influence and action. It is the 
essence of all philanthropy. It is the august voice of 
nature, rather of her Creator in man crying for help; and 
gives the true meaning to the words,— U For I was an hungered , 
and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty , and ye gave me drink: 
I was a stranger , and ye took me in: naked , and ye clothed 
me: I was sick , and ye visited me: I was in prison , and ye 
came unto 

It is made one of the hinges, upon which the door opens 

* Treatise on the Plague. f History of Medicine. 

t Treatise on the Organic Lesions of the Heart, p. 323. 

§ St. Matthew—chap. 25, verse 35 etsequente. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


139 


or shuts upon the magnificent presents—lofty decorations— 
of the transtemporal life. It regards “ a cup of cold water,” 
as a gift more splendid, than the crowns and sceptres of 
sovereigns:—is the light that burns in the most transcen¬ 
dental, sublime expression, sum homo . 

Howard,—the philanthropists,—made of it a practical 
science. The Cynic philosophers among the ancients; 
Hobbes,* Benthamf and his utilitarians among the moderns, 
disregarded its sanctions. Nero, Domitian, Caligula, Robes¬ 
pierre, hyena-shaped, put it under their feet. Jesus Christ 
engraved it on the crimson escutcheon of his religion, while 
the high tops of Asia shook, amid the thick gloom of preter¬ 
natural darkness. 

Man was not formed independent of his fellows. This 
law of our organism, I have before said, commands, secures 
their assistance. Much more dependent is he upon his 
Creator. Through it likewise he feels he needs the divine 
aid; religion becomes an imperious want. And the proudest 
monuments of his architectural skill, in countries he has left, 
and where he dwells, are the temples he has raised to gratify 
this want. 

1 ' • * . * * f ?• . V > ’ r ' • 

EXAMPLE IV. 

Hector drag ging at the war-chariot of Achilles ,— Andromache , 

the beholder. 

> 

The mechanism, the scene of the fervid vital action, are 
precisely the same as the last. The only difference is, in 
the suddenness, and greater violence of the movement. 

When the catastrophe happened, Andromache was en¬ 
gaged in an upper apartment of the palace. She was gay 
—decorated with the beautiful bridal veil of Venus; net¬ 
work of filleted gold graced the tasty ringlets of her hair. 
She did not know her husband had gone alone beyond the 
gates of Ilium; had an interview, been duped by the deceit¬ 
ful, ‘ azure-eyed ’ Pallas; or exposed to the combat of Achilles. 

* Human nature, et De corpore politico, 
f Treatise on Morals and Legislation. 


140 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


Expecting liis return from among his warriors, she had just 

ordered for him a warm bath. 

Suddenly, the ululation, the wild cry of sorrow, is heard 
from the tower, where the scene going on, is visible. It is 
the voice of Hector’s mother; and she says, 

—“I have heard the voice,—my rebounding heart chokes 
me, and I seem fettered by a frost.” She flies to the tower 
to ascertain the cause of the rupture; and beholds her mur¬ 
dered Hector dragging at the rapid chariot— 

“ Inveiled in sudden darkness, with a sigh, 

That seemed life’s latest gasp, supine she fell.” 

Here the vehement force of the consecutive movement of 
perception, and of the phrenic reaction, stuns, paralyzes, in 
place of exciting, the responding organs, and there is synco¬ 
pation —bouleversement of all the functions. 

Some relaxation occurs; she mutters delirium, the volun¬ 
tary muscles contract spasmodically, drawing up her icy 
fingers. Again she asphyxies, but recovering a little, be¬ 
holds naught but black, open-throated horror, and a wide 
world made empty, and hideous, by having lost its only 
luminary. Her laboring soul, pressed hard at every point, 
vibrates rapidly between the dark shadow of death, and the 
still darker one of her own future existence. 

The stunned organs within the sphere of the double focus 
of this movement, the mechanism of which was described 
in the last case, recover a little; the organism, by a law of 
living nature, relaxes, and the brain is able to manifest im¬ 
perfectly some of the intellectual phenomena. Thought 
dawns, and with it comes the idea of Hector. The reper- 
cussive phrenic reaction repeats on the brain and the other 
organs its hard blow; again she falls back into darkness; and 
in annihilation tastes some repose from the tiger-fanged 
thought of her misfortune. 

So the high-topt Indiaman, freighted at Arabia’s fragrant 
shores, ploughs its broad furrow through the smooth sea. 
The storm comes, lifts up the huge waves, and buries it 
beneath. Its noble form mounts up, and rides along their 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 141 

tops. But again it sinks between, and plunges the black 
gnlf of night. 

At length the intensity of the action gives way; and her 
reason occasionally interrupted, returns, but not soon her 
health. 

“ An instrument that’s tuned so fair and sweet; the chords 
once broke, not quickly will regain its just accord.” The 
organs of the triped life, as M. Duges calls them, all ex¬ 
hausted; and their tone lost from over exertion, rather over 
excitement without exertion, the congestions, organic lesions 
remain obstinate in some, and the debility in all. Anorexia, 
and wasting atrophy, come on. This leaning so admirably 
described by Bichat, often continues until the sufferer is 
threatened by protracted death. All the movements are slow; 
the pulse feeble, the voice low and scarcely audible, the mind 
incapable of a vivid conception, except the one of its sorrow. 

Thus nature always kind, by letting down the forces to 
weaken the mind’s energy, screens from excessive sorrow ; 
and from the cup of time and oblivion—the slow winding 
stream of Lethe—pours in consolation, snatching the victim 
from inevitable destruction. In this way the tender-hearted 
Andromache recovered;* for she was found among the noble 
spoils of Ilium, to be divided among the Grecian lords, and 
fell to the lot of Neoptolemus. 

* > • 

EXAMPLE V. 

Leander drowning — Hero. 

s ' 

Hero entertained for Leander the most ardent, devoted 
attachment. She was waiting for him to cross a piece of 

* But sometimes, as remarked by Percival,* Chrichton,f Arnold,;]: all the 
writers on vesania, the lesion of the brain remains permanent; the other 

organs recover, and the insanity continues for life. How furiously the mind 

/ 

can destroy ! 

* Annals of Insanity. + Mental derangement. 

4 On insanity—curious commentaries on human nature. 

12 * 


✓ 


/ 


142 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


water, which lay between them, when suddenly she saw him 
drown. In one loud—long—shriek she expired instantly.* 

Like the vivid thunder-bolt, the explosion of the phrenic 
reaction, in this case, on the brain, and other organs, de¬ 
stroyed life without producing any organic excitement. 

Not only that the painful but likewise the pleasurable and 
other emotions will kill, history is replete with examples. 
Pliny relates, that the philosopher Chrysippus and Zeuxis 
expired of pure pleasure. Every one remembers the fate of 
the latter. He painted a very ugly old gossip, who monoma- 
niacally esteemed herself a most surprising beauty; and took 
the greatest pleasure in drawing upon herself admiration 
and gallantry. He died at once, laughing at the picture. 

Plutarchf makes mention of a lady, who was suddenly 
killed by the sight of some flowers. 

The victorious Diognetes was camped before the gates of 
her city. Polycrete, endowed with eloquence and a most 
subduing beauty, was commissioned to approach the tent of 
the proud warrior to sue for peace. She succeeded; and, on 
her return discovered her path was strewn with flowers. Her 
joy instantly broke the fragile cup of her being. 

Recorded in the life and monuments of our Savior, what 
Christian, but could envy Simeon’s death, of eternal remem¬ 
brance ? 

REFLECTIONS. 

In modifying the mind itself and the organic functions, 
these examples manifest, the dynamical force and activity 
of perceptions, ideas, to be very various. They show that 
the nervous organ of nutritive life or phrenic centre, is the 
throne of the pathetic , as the encephalic focus is, of the intel¬ 
lectual phenomena. That when the mind sees an external 
object singly through this focus, the perception bears no 
impress of the passions; but when it beholds the same 
object again through this phrenic centre, the perception 

* Dannet’s Greek and Roman Antiquities, 
t De virtutibus mulierum. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


143 


becomes stamped with all the characteristics of the passions. 
Thus a slight injury is offered us. At first we do not feel 
it an injury. Afterwards it is perceived through this centre 
or nervous focus of nutrition of life, and our anger is kindled. 
Or, as in the case given; the lover may not love, or feel the 
sensation of beauty, the first time he beheld the object of 
his passion. 

That through this dynamical property or attractility of 
ideas, a single object, as the honeysuckle flower, passed the 
material conditions and become a sensation, like the Boreal 
light, may stream down the dark field of memory, carrying 
■with it a truly revivifying, resurrective energy. Recollec¬ 
tions, w T hich had long slept forgotten, shake loose from the 
dust, rise to join, and become active in its moving train. 
If the mind have devoted its days to successful study, such 
an idea may light up the whole empire of oblivion—pass 
over the long, hard struggles, mind waged with nature, to 
produce civilization through the invention of arts. Suc¬ 
cessive creations, convulsions, destructions of things, people, 
cities, kingdoms; arts, philosophy, institutions, sciences, 
manners, customs, morals, religions, languages, lost in the 
ravages of war, modified in the conquest and affiliation of 
nations—monuments of history, man and his works—all hid 
alike in the great sepulchre of time, will retaste being, stand 
up erect as they once w^ere, and live before it. 

It is this energetically active force of ideas, which con¬ 
ducts the orator on the route of discussion. Soon the phrenic 
fire presses steadily his brain, and touches his soul with 
magic, stimulating the activity of this force. New and 
unexpected fields of thought suddenly expand before him, 
rich in flowers and sunshine. The cold written form of 
expression drops from his hands. He plunges the tumul¬ 
tuous, burning gulf, into which his mind has been shaped; 
“ the listening senate drags at his heels,” adoring assemblies 
start affrighted from their seats, or dissolved, pour out their 
tears. 

Under this rapid stimulation, his brain soon tires, and is 
exhausted. If he knew not, before he rose, what he might 


144 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


say, he cannot now repeat or feel or know what he has just 
spoken. He has been caught up, as by supernatural power, 
to figure for a moment in another sphere, from which he 
has been cast down as in mockery. 

It is this force thus stimulated, which enchants the islands 
of the sea, the scenes of woodland shade, of craggy, frowning 
rocks, the tombs, palaces and castles of the dead; and all 
antiquity giving to them the tender look. It is it, which 
brings within the horizon “ the gorgeous palaces and cloud- 
capt towers,”—it, which causes, 

“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

‘To’ glance from heav’n to earth, from earth to heaven, 

And as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen 
‘ Turn’ them to shape, and 4 give’* to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name.” 

We know that solitudes, high elevations favor the displays 
of this force. Hence, we may suppose, the philosophical 
ancients located the birth-place of the Muses on the top of 
mountains; and bestowed on Apollo and Hercules, the name 
of Musagetes, who led them forth. 

Under the name of “ association of ideas,” Dr. Hartley 
made it one of the bases of his vibratuncularism. Vibration, 
he supposed for the nerves in sensation, the other base, he 
took from Newton, who conceived the rays of light vibrated 
on their near approach 'to objects. With Brown it is sug- 
gestion simple and relative . 

. ' x, i 1 .f * r 

- ^ . ■ . * 7 , 

EXAMPLE VI. 

Besides the alimentary tissues, all those composing the 
phrenic focus — or the various organs immediately under 
trisplanchnic animation — there are others, on which the 
secondary, perceptive movement directly falls, and expends 
its energy. These are all the voluntary muscles. Man— 
all animated beings live in their unremitted reaction on their 

* To suit the course of thought here, may I be forgiven the sin of having 
offered change to these three words, of what is inimitable, immortal. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


145 


world. This class of movements comprehends the fourth 
subdivision of the second dynamical order of the distribution 
laid down above; and as I have said, secures and maintains 
this ceaseless, conservative reaction. 

No being of nature, we have seen, puts forth its acts in 
solitude, but all combine to a general effort. In this reac¬ 
tion, it is the mind, which places the organism in the great 
circle of the social movement. But we cannot understand, 
how the mind, without weight or extension, can move the 
solid extended organs—or how our immaterial can excite 
motion in our material. We only know that mind and 
matter are the same thing in origin—descended alike from the 
same spiritual, eternal Nature; and may suspect our distinc¬ 
tions to depend much more upon our incorrigible ignorance, 
than upon their difference. We know nothing of the direct 
action of mind on inanimate bodies. Such appears to form 
no order of nature to illuminate us. We only know organic, 
living bodies, as the sole medium of reciprocal activity be¬ 
tween the two. Mind can simply excite motion in the mat¬ 
ter of living organs, which is transmitted; and in turn, is 
excited by the action of external matter upon these organs. 

M. Cuvier, with many others, conceived this motion of 
volition to be attended by chemical phenomena—something 
like the explosion of phlogisticating gases in the muscles on 
their decurtation. We are also ignorant of the nature of this 
vitalo-mental movement. But we must not anticipate here 
what will more properly come before us in a future part of our 
work, where sensation and the intellectual faculties will 
claim attention. 

In the first infancy, the voluntary muscles are but little 
under the autocracy of the will. They need much training, 
or in the language of M. Bichat, to be “educated,” before 
they obey promptly its stimulations. The consecutive 
movement of perception upon them, consequently, is no¬ 
thing at first. 

According to Mr. Hobbes, all these acts have their origin 
in the passions, or “the imagination is the first internal 


146 


INTELLECTUAL MECHANICS. 


beginning of all voluntary motion.”* No doubt a vast 
number of them, which give to human life so many color¬ 
ings, are reflected through the phrenic sense, before they 
stimulate the organs. Caesar reached forth his hands, at the 
public festival of the Homans, to receive the flower-covered 
diadem presented him; for, like Pompey his rival, he desired 
the sovereignty of the world. And it was the fear of the 
people, that made him again lay it down. But certainly the 
repeated blows of the axe-man, the motions of the laborer, 
innumerable acts we constantly perform, have nofhing to 
do with the passions. The consecutive movement of per¬ 
ception, passes directly to the voluntary muscles, and stimu¬ 
lates their activity. 

Nature has made this sort of perceptions the most nume¬ 
rous, because the most useful. Millions of them pass with¬ 
out exciting any motion; but when they do, they all directly 
or indirectly, expend the sensorial power on the voluntary 
muscles; organs whose excitements are infinitely less lethal, 
than those of ganglionic life.f It was the force of this sort 
of perceptions, when the earth was but one wilderness, that 
commanded room for the cultivated field, and the reign of 
Ceres; became the mother of cities; and, in its exercise, is 
the fulfilment of the Divine statute, “ by the sweat of thy 
brow, thou shalt eat bread all the days of thy life.” 

The modifications the objects of these perceptions may 
produce in us and animals, decide the direction of the ulte¬ 
rior movement. Is the tendency to conservation and enjoy¬ 
ment—to the jucundum, the entire motion is a complete 
circle. The direction will be to end in the object— approxi¬ 
mation. Is the tendency to the reverse, or to the turpe of 
the ancient schools, the circle will be broken, and the ulte¬ 
rior movement take a tangental direction— repulsion. Here 

* Works, p. 116. 

t We have seen the influence of the passions. Tissot, in his Traite de 
la sante des gens de lettres , mentions a great number of cases of injury from 
them. One, among others, is that of the celebrated Malebranche, who was 
struck with lively and violent palpitations of the heart, on reading Descartes’ 
Traite de V homme. 


SECOND ORDER OF MOVEMENTS. 


147 


the secondary, perceptive movement is reflected through the 
ganglionic sense—mirror of nutritive life—which greatly 
augments its stimulating power on the achieving muscles. 
Thus nature multiplies her forces on the organs, which put 
us in relation with the external world. 

We have endeavored here to exhibit simply the manner 
in which nature brings forward the mind, places it down by 
the side of her other great actors, and presents it in the 
moving spectacle of the world. In the next book, as 
noticed,' it will find its place for consideration in its other 
relations. 


I V 










1 


( 


4 




i 


148 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


1 /.'■ 

BOOK II. 

BEINGS—THEIR RELATIONS TO THE DOUBLE EXTENSION OF TIME 

AND SPACE. 

In the first part of this work, we have considered three 
great active forces—or three sorts of being, matter , life and 
intelligence , which with their properties and displaying phe¬ 
nomena, constitute nature , and the Being primeval, in reach¬ 
ing whom reason investigating them, terminates its flight. 
In this second book, into which our work is divided, we are 
to contemplate them in relation to the double extension of 
time and space. We shall behold them exert their proper¬ 
ties for productiveness, unfold their cosmic phenomena, and 
pass through their revolutions. This sort of contemplation 
will tend much to the historical; and we shall pursue the 
same order in descantation, as we have done in the pre¬ 
ceding book. It is obvious, our manner of writing being 
sketches, permits us only to touch, but not exhaust the 
topics over which we pass. 


# 

i 

* > e _ % 

r • • , ■ ' ■» i 1 . • L 

CHAPTER I. 

THE HISTORICAL CREATOR, OR AN ACTIVE, DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 

‘ f t. 

Imperturbable in their great dynamic balance, the 
spheres above, to mortals, turn softly on their axes. They 
appear and disappear without change; fall not in their 
course “into the yellow leaf,” but persevere the same in an 
eternal quiet. On the earth force rebels against force; and 
there ensues disastrous change. The slightest observation 
of the earth’s arrangement—its moist body enveloped in a 
dense elastic fluid—evinces it never was formed for tran¬ 
quillity. Under such physical arrangement, force can never 



DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 149 

• < • , 

long hold force in equipoise. In the triumph of the one 
over the other there must be ceaseless revolution. 

On its broad surface are spread the sentient races. They 
only appreciate existence, enjoy nature, and feel the changes 
without. How invaluable, precious is this surface ! Making 
more room here, yonder the mountain lifts its lapideous head 
threatening the way of the stars; vegetable life beautifying, 
ascends near as it dare the frozen roof of heaven. Here the 
valley forming, sweeps out undulating into the extended 
plain to reach the sea. Yonder sweet in moonlight lies the 
lake, vehicle of national intercourse and convenience. Here 
winds the stream, noisy with wave and singing bird. Yon¬ 
der the leafy tree struggles with the passing zephyr. Here 
the wide meadow mocks the sea-waves. Yonder the burn¬ 
ing sun engenders thirst; here opens the rock, mother of 
cool waters. 

These are the houses—homes—of the living, built when 
nature was young. Mountains are the partition walls; 
oceans, the separating ditches; Heaven, the common roof. 
Here pass their ages. 

1. All invite from nonentity; the beauty and ornaments 
of existence seem pledged. Zephyrus bursts from the cham¬ 
bers of Ausonia, and flies on purple wings. The course 
of light is lengthening; and the vernal Aurora is lashing her 
foaming steeds up the steep East. The rapid wheels in¬ 
flame the steady axles. They dart their reddening fires, and 
dye deep the clouds. Her radiant wheels fly through the 
Orient gates, and burn the dew-drops, little images of them¬ 
selves, the stars now taking their rest in their hid chambers, 
had hung to clustering flowers. 

Yesterday her chariot passed in safety, the day before, 
and still the day before, and still—raining down naught but 
life, and the tranquillity of enjoyment. But to-day unpor¬ 
tended, nay, portended contrarily, before it reached heaven’s 
high top, it struck suddenly the black gulf of night mis¬ 
placed, the throne of light usurped, and was lost. As some 
triple-fanged, starving monster, whose chain had been sud¬ 
denly cut loose in heaven, the tempest came, shaking the 
13 


150 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


earth, sweet with flowers and soft in promise, with his 
sinewy arm and noisy breath, as if to devour;—pouring from 
his throat the scathing fire and globular ice;—and swept 
into one smooth nonentity, the toil and care and hope of time, 
held by a macjna charta , not extorted but freely given, now 
violated. 

2. At the foot of some mountain, whose hideous and de¬ 
formed top is deceitfully veiled in the clouds, the plain slopes 
beautifully to the sea, nourishing mother of trade. Indicating 
great fertility of soil, the conifera , the magnolia , lift high 
their heads, and unfold the rich treasure of their foliage. No 
one dreams their deep roots cluster about the ivory and gold, 
which ornamented a throne, drink in the coffins of a sud¬ 
denly destroyed people, and -unfold ambrosial fragrance, 
loveliness and beauty. 

Clad in the skins of wdld beasts and half starved, some 
nomadic tribe roaming the earth for sustenance and accom¬ 
modation, seduced by the beauty and fertility of the spot, 
plant deep their tent-posts, and dwell in a fixed habitation. 
Food and clothing multiply upon their industry ; and they 
soon expand into a great nation, holding all the adjacent 
country. 

They build a city; establish legislative halls, and seats of 
public justice. Law moulds society into an energetic body; 
and gives to individual life its just weight and value in the 
organized whole. The earth now feels the pressure of a 
regular and systematic cultivation. The industrious arts 
are born; and a superfluity of articles created for exchange. 
The white sail carries them to distant shores; and they bring 
home other commodities created by the taste and ingenuity 
of other people, or refused to their own soil. Elegance and 
luxury are born. 

The streets are extended to the water’s edge to receive the 
freighted ships; and the city grows in its strength. Enve¬ 
loped in radiant clouds of gold, a lovely, smiling form de¬ 
scends. It is the genius of poetry and the fine arts, de¬ 
scended in the person of Minerva. Now they w T orry the 
spotted marble, and fret the roof of heaven with magnificent 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


151 


edifices. They ornament them with precious stuffs, and wor¬ 
ship the Gods they brought with them from their native land. 
They rear up mausolea to protect the ashes of the honored 
dead; with the harp sound their praises; and by statues 
perpetuate eternal remembrances. Of brass or adamant, in 
the midst of the city, they lift to heaven, against the friction 
of time, the monumental column, on which are to be in¬ 
scribed the name of the country they left, of the tribe from 
which they are descended; the day and epoch they pitched 
their tents to build the city; the names of the founder, the 
reigning monarch. 


Contemplative men put together the observations of time; 
the laws of nature are discovered; philosophy is born to illu¬ 
minate the arts, and push them forward. The means augment, 
the population still advances. Their country’s banner floats 
smoothly on the wave, and is respected. The proud eagles 
of Jove perch on it, threatening protection. The fair city 
increases in the richness of its stores, and magnificence. 
Human beauty remodeled, flits along the streets in jeweled 
robes —lovely symbols — letters ,—in which history reads the 
progress of arts and civilization. It is only now a legend, 
that their ancient mothers tore from the trembling limbs of 
furious beasts overtaken in the dark morass, the warm skin 
for a covering; carried burthens; and performed menial 
service. 

The course of time is regular; has been so for centuries. 
His chariot in which Fate rides compassionately, returns 
with naught but good—good, pledged and sanctioned by the 
laws which regulate the gray hairs of things—good, hal¬ 
lowed and made venerable by age—procured at first, and 
sanctioned by these laws, on whose sacred and veracious 
fidelity all human prospective efforts are predicated. 

Their fathers passed in the ordinary tide, which sweeps 
away things. They went full of enjoyment and ripe to the 
long rest of the mortuary. Time forgotten, they heard the 
sound, the voice of the mountain. But it was not spoken to 
them; it was a dozing utterance to the passing moon. 

Like the days passed, prosperity and gaiety flow on in 



152 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


full tide. The lamps planted along the streets, pour on the 
nights an artificial day. They listen to the flute or shrill 
timbrel, the wine darting its fires along their veins; and fall 
asleep in the very arms of pleasures eager and waiting for 
them. The vestal fires burn, have burnt faithfully on the 
sacred altars of their temples; and have never been once 
extinguished. They have violated no condition ; and right¬ 
fully expect the laws, on which their lives and fortunes rest, 
will in honor be honored to them. But to-night, the city 
lamps and those of heaven, are suddenly extinguished for¬ 
ever. The maddened earth tosses herself. The mountain’s 
top veiled blue in the azure expanse, always before inspiring 
pleasing emotion, is only visible in terror. It parts, and 
pours down a vitreous sea of raging fire, bearing on it the 
most terrific death. The whole city is buried deep in the 
entrails of the fertile valley, where it stood ; all its lives and 
records lost; and it is naught now, but a fossil for some future 
musing antiquarian. 

3. The fickle, fastidious thunder, or electric fluid, hides 
itself in the earth’s great metallic veins. Its strength full grown, 
it frets the course of things :—darts through the continents ; 
loosens their great joints, breaks in pieces the sea’s deep 
bottom. The throat of death and destruction flies open, and 
the world tosses on its red forky spear. 

4. Unwearied in kindness, nature pampers generations; 
visits them with perpetual good; but she lies in ambush, 
and waits for their children,—their children grown numerous 
and powerful by her own cares and lavishments. 

While they are laying deep and wide the foundations of 
the metropolitan city convenient to commerce; rearing up 
the palaces for the long line of their expected Caesars; arching 
the domes of their Emirs or imperial lords, not far from the 
sea-shore, she is collecting together, and depositing the vast 
treasures of her metalliferous bases, and combining with 
them elements of the most explosive power. But the place 
is dry; and they are not tormented with water, or permitted 
to slake their thirst. Quiet as lambs, in each other’s em¬ 
brace, these elementary forces, to totter and uproot creation, 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


153 

sleep for noiseless centuries. Water now is wanting for the 
mowing scythe—the keen sharp edge of destiny; and, by 
the absence only of a few drops to ignite the great magazine, 
millions ol lives are preserved in perfect safety. But the 
water is at some distance; and the storehouse is of massv 
rock. All sublunaries turn on the common hinge. The 
empire city goes up; and the seamen returning with the 
treasures of other lands, behold, at mast-head, its flaming 
turrets glitter far over the waves. 

Ambassadors from foreign princes throng its resounding 
halls, to extend its external relations. Fortune smiles. In 
the midst of their rising prosperity and greatness, they look 
back to the infancy of their nation. They remember grate¬ 
fully the first occupation of men to procure food to nourish 
their offspring. Under the name of Diana , they personify 
the chase , and establish her worship. The force which re¬ 
news life, to which they are immediately indebted for their 
own, they represent under the name of Venus , perhaps from 
venire to come, and erect their worshipful altars. They 
fashion the stone to honor the great moving Power* of the 

o O 

world. 

Yonder among some trees, rises its proud Vatican, where 
on long ranging shelves is deposited the written wisdom of 
all ages and countries. The outer court is graced by neat 
statues of wisdom, justice, prudence and time. There, many- 
chambered, mounts its great Coliseum to the sky. What¬ 
ever is rare, beautifully wrought or curious, finds in it a 
place. Yonder, in huge iron chests or excavated stone, sur¬ 
rounded by impregnable walls, are the gold and silver— 
tribute paid by a mighty people ; and the treasure of princes 
through many prosperous reigns. 

* Accordingly, among all people, who have had reflection, except the Jews, 
history, in the absence of others, can trace the worship of these three divini¬ 
ties disguised under a great variety of names. Iao was the original, creating 
power; Venus or Freya, the conservative power of life ; and, before the age 
of Ceres, the chase furnished the means of subsistence. Diana, who procured 
subsistence, and Freya, who renewed or reproduced life, therefore, shared with 
Iao, the original giver, the homage of ancient men. They constantly had need 
of these three; hence their universality, of which all history is so full of evidence. 

13* 


154 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


Danger hath many shapes invisible. The ground feels 
firm and steady beneath their feet; but the moon, the faith¬ 
ful , honest moon , dashes the sea-water against the shore in 
eternal friction. The substance is worn away, but the outer 
crust is still left stable. Under-currents fritter away at last 
the rocky house of the magazine; the water gains access. 
There ensue a few hard and dreadful shocks. Men live not 
to see the struggle through; the land and the city break off 
together; and calm restored, the billows rest far above 
its topmost spires. The star-measuring mariner, having 
ploughed through many a sea, returns home from the gold 
or amber coast, but finds nothing except his empty latitude 
and Longitude. 

This is partially true, may be true of most all countries; 
and is not confined to the land of the Incas. 

5. Little deaths ride on the atoms seen in the sunbeam; 
are resident in the dropping honey-comb ; exhale in aromatic 
flowers; or play in the vibratory torrent of respiration. But 
the mother, the great ancient mother, retires from human 
sight; and hides herself in the low wet lands of old Lemnos, 
Euphrates’ muddy shore; in the dark Sarbonian bog, the 
Nile’s black watery fens, or in the great humid retreats of 
Africa’s unfamiliar soil.* There, as some scaly slimy mon- 

* The opinion pretty generally prevailed in all antiquity, that the plague 
and all pestilential diseases had their origin in Africa. This view accords 
with Sprengel ( Histoire de la Medecine) and Le Clerc (Idem.) M. Fodere 
finds reason to believe, the shores of the Levant are the most fruitful source 
of such maladies.— (Die. des Scien. Medicates, art. Peste.) Dr. Mead speaks 
of Ethiopia and Egypt, as the acknowledged original seats of the pestilence, 
which ravages the world— [Works, and particulary, Treatise on the Plague.) 
Mr. Gibbon mentions the Sarbonian bog, as having participated in generating 
that foul contagion, which so greatly depopulated the world in the age of 
Justinian, to the disgrace of the reign of that emperor— (Roman Empire, vol. 
4 .) M. Savary, against Pauw and a host of others, vindicates Egypt from 
producing contagion—( Letters on Egypt.) But he studied and wrote what 
was grand and beautiful and ancient in that country, and too partially loved it. 

All tropical and citratropical countries are now known to be the frequent 
generators of pestilential diseases. Even “ a blade of grass” growing near 
standing water, remarks Dr. Macculloch, may mark the seat of contagion— 
(On Malaria.) The phenomena of such are frequently hateful and odious ; 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


155 


ster, slie rolls and tosses about unseen her huge fetid form. 
Sometimes in the dark night* she leaves her lurking-places 
to prowl about the streets of old Cairo, or slip over to vex 
Damietta, Alexandria or Rosetta; or making a wider excur¬ 
sion, she passes to distress Constantinople, Smyrna, or Salo- 
nica. 

Covered in by impenetrable brush wood in her paludal 
haunts, she sometimes composes herself, and sleeps pretty 
quietly for whole centuries together. Once and awhile she 
half wakes, flashes open her big glaring eyes to observe the 
nations, and then sleeps again. She subsists on all living 
ruins; or, according to Lyell, her food is the locust and 
the crawling caterpillar or its chrysalis. If she reposes, 
she observes the progressive events of the world, and 
ever waits for opportunity to strike. Athens, for example, 
becomes the fairest flower on earth; reaches the summit of 
glory in arms, arts and letters. Archidamus is ravaging 
Attica with his fierce Peloponnesians. Dionysius sits on 
the throne of Syracuse a hideous tyrant; the Carthagenian 
is about to scourge him. The iEqui and Volsci oppress 
the descendants of iEneas. 

Now she looks abroad; lifts up her form though huge, 
invisible; and erects her great blood-stained crest. She un¬ 
folds her broad pellucid wings on open day; mounts up, 
and flapping, fans each frozen pole. She passes from Pelu- 
sium directing her main route over where man is planted the 
thickest; traverses Syria, Persia, Arabia, the Indies; turns 
to soar along the western coast of Africa, then crosses over 
and visits Sicily, the iEgean isles, ultimately, Britain, 
France, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Greece, Pal¬ 
estine, China. At her approach soul and body fly asunder; 
the countries make but one slaughter-house. She afflicts 

and all people, who can write, have manifested a disposition to free their 
country from the imputation of the odium of their origin. Thus the syphilis 
was palmed unjustly on the South Sea islands and our America. 

* To ward off the attacks of pestilence from the soldiers, who kept the 
night-watch , Assilini prescribed the besmearing their bodies all over with 
olive oil .—(Treatise on the Plague of Egypt.) 


156 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


all; but comes to the aid of the Peloponnesians against the 
Athenians;* disappoints the Cartliagenian, and favours the 
tyrant of Syracuse; helps the vEqui and Volsci against the 
Romans, if she did hit with her pinion the audacious Sen¬ 
nacherib, f 

She retires afterwards for a season to take some rest. But 
the destruction of mortals by the sword, and the fierce forces 
with which our world is armed, is too tortoise-footed for her. 
She watches the nations. Mahomet flies from Mecca to 
Medina. The sword of the Saracen is unsheathed without 
a parallel, except in that of the Hun and Mogul. Already 
tottering under the blow received from the Romans, it cuts 
down Persia, overruns and reduces Syria and Egypt, plun¬ 
ders Jerusalem, and lays waste the African provinces. It 
besieges Constantinople; attacks the East and the West, 
passes from India to Spain; and from Spain is proceeding 
through France, where Charles Martel makes the first suc¬ 
cessful opposition, and wrests it from the gory hand of the 
Saracen. In only thirty-eight years, it deflowered the fairest 
gardens of the earth; and left the victim countries naught 
but the charnel houses of the putrefying dead. 

As if jealous and infuriated at the exploits of the Saracen, 
now she quits suddenly again her shady Nile and Sarbonian 
bogs; puts on her panoply, and sallies forth in her greatest 

* Vid. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnessian war, 2d year. 

t We have constant examples of the sovereign ruler accomplishing his 
will by physical agents. Among men, who entertain a firm belief and 
profound respect for religion, there prevails a disposition culpable almost 
universally in our age, to confound all divine causation of events with the 
physical or common course of nature. Among the many, we select the 
meditative Kert, Sprengel. Reciting the science, civilization and medical 
knowledge of the Jews, and speaking of the plague, which was sent upon 
them in the reign of David to punish the vanity of that monarch, for ordering 
a census of the tribes, he says, “ Jehovah regarda ce denombrement comme 
1’efTet de la vanite du roi, et envoya l’ange exterminateur, qui fit perir soix- 
ante etdix mille homines. Le fleau n’arreta ses ravages que lorsque les holo- 

caustes et les offrandes du souverain desarme la colere de Dieu.” Again,_ 

“ Us (the prophets) provoquaient des maladies quand Jehovah etait irrite, et 
eux seuls avaient le puvoir de les guerir.”— Hist, de la Medecine , tom. i. 
p. 70. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


157 


strength. She hurls from the sky the jetty rocks; with a 
dark veil muffles up the orb of day; and no light escapes 
from the 4th of August until the 1st of October.* In the 
assassin darkness, she carbuncles the nations, war-bruised, 
and the wounds still open and uncicatrized. She pains 
their limbs and they cry for amputation. Unquenchable 
fires burn their entrails. The most fetid sanies, poisonous 
odor, exhale from the black ulceration covering their bodies. 
The scent of one man kills another; the sight of each 
other is death. Ail medicine is vanity—blasphemy. The 
noble emotions of our nature procuring succor are extin¬ 
guished. Man flies from his hideous, misshapen fellow man, 
but dies, merely changing the spot where he is to fall. 

All human laws paralyze, lose their force. Humanity 
outdone loses all moral shape. Pillage and rapine unre¬ 
strained, join the dark train of ruin. So much death, 
soon in some causes death to become unheeded, and its 
power unfelt. With harpy hands, they snatch the glitter¬ 
ing jewels from the cold white fingers of the lovely dead; 
unloose the golden clasps, that bind her slender waist, dedi¬ 
cated to her at the altar of virgin purity. Before all are 
dead, the door of the private house is broken, and they live 
to see themselves stript of all their valuables. His fist for 
the last time clenched now in death, and his visage distorted, 
wild, the miser eyes the bold robber, as he breaks his iron 
chest, and counts his gold. 

Death is too rapid on every sex and condition; burial and 
its rights become an idle, misplaced ceremony. The dead 
putrefy in the churches, the private houses, and strew the 
open field.f The hungry birds of heaven dare not taste. 

Mussabat tcicito medicinci timore. The physician and his 
patient, the sovereign and the subject, the homicide, the 
assassin, the execrable, abominable, the polluted and the aban¬ 
doned, die with the pure, the noble and the virtuous,—with 

* Vid. The Universal History. Gibbon speaks of this darkness only as 
an extraordinary dimness of the snn. The Greek and Arabian historians 
describe it as perfect darkness. 

t Tytler—Treat, on the Plague. 


158 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


the pious minister and his adoring saints. One flood of 
putrefaction and pain sweeps them all alike into oblivion 
the lover and her he loves; the mother and her blue-eyed 
boy; the father and his blushing daughter. The aged are 
tript up from the natural grave; and the infant, if he live, 
by the drying of his mother’s bosom. 

If the caterpillar and the dark night* of the locusts advance 
in the front, famine, lean, gaunt famine, pursues closely in 
the rear the trail of the pestilence, to glean what remains. 
The withered of time, who were spared, perish gradually 
with hunger. The strong and the robust follow them. 
Every pathway—tendency—conducts still but to the tomb. 
The widow mourning her husband slain in recent battle, 
and her naked children screaming for bread, are hurried 
slowly away; and she lovely, weeping for her love, fallen 
beneath the bloody banner: 

O horror ! fatum illudabile! mortcditatis magnet forma !! 

If, about the close of the fifteenth century, the Sudor An- 
glicus pressed hard, in the actual epoch, we have seen the 
cholera slaughter. It travelled the great longitude of our 
world, nearly in the isothermal lines. After having stilled 
all the noise of joy, and put on Europe the robes of mourn¬ 
ing, in the same lines it reached our America, w’here its 
course received some modifications from the peculiarities of 
our hydrology. 

Thus, since history, misfortune, calamity, catastrophe 
moral, physical, have pursued closely our race, and agitated 
constantly our realm of existence. War has trodden in the 
bloody footsteps of war; the huge wheels of its chariot been 
dragged over the bones of the nations it had slaughtered, 
before they have had time to bleach. Pestilence, restless, 
furious pestilence, has walked in the path of pestilence, 
before the earth has sweetened from the former carnage. 
The locust, caterpillar, and famine, have not failed to erect 
their colossal form of death in the most beautiful, fertile— 
man-hearing —spots of the earth, and summon the petrified 
inhabitants to the great national grave. The seas have 

* Beauplan. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


159 


changed their deep basins, and taken possession of the 
peopled lands. Earthquakes have disfigured the forms of 
the ancient continents, and made of the sea-water the com¬ 
mon winding-sheet. The volcano’s quenchless fire has con¬ 
tinued to strike furiously at the living.—The earth distracted, 
torn by the imponderable elements she wears in her bosom, 
has continually buried untimely her own children; tosses at 
their blow, and constantly threatens to fall. The natural 
grave is not filled; gray hairs mocked; the forces of life not 
permitted to exhaust, but are crushed in their vigor. 

The Numen, Supreme Power of nature, has been in¬ 
voked, and attempted to be appeased, propitiated in the 
names of a hundred thousand divinities. All but a few of 
the old gods are now dead; countries have disputed over 
their tombs for the honor; and the august ruins of their 
great temples lie scattered in the wilderness—matters of 
wonder and curiosity to illiterate, living people. The bush 
and the bramble grow round them ; the owl hid, hoots from 
the sancta sanctorum of nations; and the serpent lies in the 
cool shade they make. 

The descendants of the Tartar and of Brama, worship 
still the respective gods of their ancient fathers. The re¬ 
ligion of Abraham and Ishmael has swallowed up the 
balance of the world. And Islamism would die, but for its 
unholy, foul connections* with the sacred religion of Pales¬ 
tine. 

Yet the Supreme Power has not cooled the hot bolt of 
destruction; disarmed red war of its noise; the steel of its 
sharp edge; the pestilence of its venom and putrefaction; 
famine of its locusts, its draughts and caterpillars; and re¬ 
stored to things a smooth course, and an inviolable order. 
In the present order disordered, the fair, the beautiful and 
good suffer, have always suffered; the hateful, the vicious, 
the deformed may escape, have always escaped. The ava¬ 
ricious testator may fatten on the widow and the orphan’s 
substance; and natural good and prosperity meet him at 

* Vid. Sale’s Koran—Prelim. Discourse. 


160 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


every corner of life; while the virtuous and the honest are 
borne down under innumerable calamities. 

At human tribunals, the innocent and the good are ar¬ 
raigned, and die for the black crimes of the thief and the 
homicide, sinking their family name into unmerited obli¬ 
vion; while the guilty and the polluted turn their necks 
from the edge of deserved vengeance; and flourish amid 
the accumulated honors of the world. At the tribunal of 
nature there is no distinction. The rain and the seasons 
come alike to all. The earth with her flow r ers pours forth 
her plenty for the lovers and the haters of piety;—for the mis¬ 
creant, whose foot disgraces her face, and for him whose life 
is an ornament to humanity;—for him, who opens the veins 
of a nation to gratify his lustful ambition, subverting moral 
order; and for him who piously lends his pow r er to console 
mankind and establish peace. 

“ It is in vain to serve God.” A hundred thousand have 
been faithfully worshipped by the ancestors of existent men; 
and the wealth and industrv of nations taxed, to build altars 
suitable to their rank and dignity. The precious metals, 
rare and costly stones, all the earth holds beautiful, scarce 
and valuable have, at incalculable cost and toil of ages, been 
collected together, and curiously wrought to ornament them. 
They have, at all times, covered the civilized earth, and their 
spires burnt glittering up to heaven. 

They have disdained human grandeur, glory, art, industry 
sacrificed, and refused to dwell in them; or put their hands 
on the rein w 7 hich guides the world. It is idle to build more. 
They have not been noticed, although the blood of earth’s 
fatlings has continued to be poured out, and the sw^eet per¬ 
fume of burnt incense, rolled up in clouds to the very floor 
of their dwellings. It is silly to think of invoking more. 
There are no gods; or if they be, they enjoy eternal pleasures, 
and take no interest in our affairs below.* They despise 
our art, industry, the superb accommodations, architectural 
glory, by which we would invite them down. Or if they 
exist, they are two.f—The one, the dispenser of good, the 

* Epicureans. • f Oromasdes, Arimanius—Manichaeism. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


161 


other, of evil; and mortals should build altars to disarm the 
vengeance of the author of evil and implore the aid and bene¬ 
factions of the eternal Sovereign of good; 

What, then, is the philosophy of a divine providence? and 

WHY HAVE MEN MISTAKEN, MISUNDERSTOOD ITS COURSE? 

Man constantly feels the want of his Creator. Behold 
your species, whose great acts history has preserved. With 
what ceaseless, undying efforts, all periods, have they pushed 
their way up to the great axis, round which all beings turn; 
over what explorable depths of the universe have they not 
travelled, seeking the dear author of their being? Through 
the incorrigible darkness, a ray of light leads here and 
there. With what avidity have they pursued and grasped 
after the shadows and images of God, inestimable, invaluable 
treasures, through which they could contemplate, in the 
distance, the substance? Above the height of all heights; 
beyond all reach, how dear, how sacred the footsteps, even 
the slightest trace, perfume, He has left of himself! 

Observe, from the shady inaccessible waters, where the 
crocodile reposes, he goes forth; the cat and the owl, under 
the covert of night. What they do is visible ; but they are 
unseen ; obtrude not upon your view. Think you the Egyp¬ 
tians, the Indians and the Persians held, and worshiped them 
as Gods? men, over whom science sat in her first brilliant 
meridians ? Banish the vulgar, contaminating idea. Refrain 
to violate, pollute with unconsecrated hands* the first great 
beautiful images contemplation gave to thought—images 
which must immortalize as they grow 7 older—venerable 
monuments mind has left of itself—pledges to us it cannot 
die; and, in other worlds, will rear up other monuments. 
Worshipped them as Gods? countries w 7 hich could educate 
Moses, Hermes, Manetho,—had the teachings of Zoroaster, 
could produce the Institutes of Menu, the Vedas, the Zen- 
davesta; rear up the eternal zodiac; shame by the works they 
left, all friction of time? Men, who could cut out of solid 
rock, and transfer 2000 leagues distance, the floor* of the 

* Herodotus, lib. ii. 

14 


« 


162 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


temple of Butis or Latona, sixteen millions of pounds weight 
by measurement, and lift it up where it now' stands; who, 
with gigantic strength, imitated the works of nature, had 
knowledge to excavate a vast sea* in the sandy plain, and 
establish rolling waves for commerce ?—Proof, that they 
had not only made great progress in the science of matter, 
but likewise of human nature, and understood profoundly 
the art of government. 

They were deformed by monstrous errors, had great vices, 
but they were dark. Ignorance is a common principle, 
which unites, must unite all ages into one great community. 
Has the light grown brighter ? we did not perforate the skies 
to let through its beautiful rays. Let us do homage to the 
compassion of the Being they sought, who pushed forward 
in sight of us, the everlasting orb of truth and light. They 
strained their eye-balls, but the rays fell sparse; we but open 
them and see. They did not see ; we call, abhor them, bar - 
barian , heathen. We see, but do not obey. We are the 
true heathen. God with them was a tormenting want; he 
is with us. They were our real brethren. They knew but 
little, but, how far with our forces, shall we ever advance in 
this unfathomable ocean of eternal radiance! 

s / 

On the one side, as already seen, man is armed against 
his fellow man, and, in his war, mows down his existence; 
on the other, the fretful forces of his world, are armed against 
him. For him nature affords no asylum; her whole aspect 
is planted with his ruin. In her he can step but upon the 
decayed coffins of his species; he finds no pillow, where he 
can repose in security. Agitated, threatened in every part 
of his being, he leaps, must leap beyond her, to seize on the 
bosom of her great Father and his Father to hide in safety. 
Thus God becomes the focus of all sentient, reflective exist- 

t This sea or the lake Moeris is described by Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, 
Strabo, Pliny, as well as by many modern travellers. Herodotus makes its 
circumference 3600 stadia or 60 schceni, and its greatest depth 300 feet. It 
occupies ground extremely dry and sandy, and without springs, its waters 
being supplied by the Nile. They flow into it six months in the year, and 
flow back the other six months. 


divine providence. 


163 


ence, and, as I have said, a want the most imperious. We 
feel we originally came from beyond the skies, where we 
left our Maker. In him only is safety, our prayers uncon¬ 
sciously rush up toward him. In his hands are life and 
death, and the control of their causes. Our prayers are 
reasonable, philosophical; religion is natural; all men are, 
have ever been, religious. 

But the accidents of time have produced changes; the 
primeval religion is lost; and this natural religion become 
impiety. In these changes, its natural sources have been 
dried up; it carried back, and placed in the original foun¬ 
tain ; and to be availing now, must flow again as at first. 
The earth has miscarried the first religion ; it flew back into 
the bosom of God. All the traditions of early nations, in 
which are unequivocal traces of the ancient existence of an 
age of gold, of universal good will, peace, and harmony, 
bear solemn testimony of this moral catastrophe, which broke 
and swept away the beautiful ties, man first enjoyed with 
his Creator. Since then an outcast, with wild beasts for his 
companions, he has roamed the earth; prepared the crimson 
cup of war, poured it out, and it has run down, and left the 
red stain indelibly on all his epochs. 

The last question of our inquiry is answered; — Why 
have men mistaken, misunderstood the course of Divine 
Providence? 

The image of the Eternal Maker deformed, bedimmed, 
still had strength enough left to glow in their bosoms; and 
they continued to pour out their hearts’ rich treasure on their 
lost, far distant, unknown Father. Born now disinherited, 
in perpetual orphanage, they squandered over the earth; 
and in its different countries reared up the sacred altar, as 
history sees, and made their offerings in the dark, accordingly 
to the opinions they could form of the wants, appetites, tastes, 
wishes, ambitions, pleasures of the object to be adored. Traces 
of this Being were still left, and constantly impressed upon 
them by the great operations of nature. 

Shall a living man beholding his brother now on the high 
top of three thousand centuries past, scorn, heap on him 


164 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


odious names and contempt? How low, diminutive does 
his intellectual stature appear! That top was covered in 
the thickest gloom, amid which he struggled and wept. 
Let him, confident in his colossal stature of mind, remem¬ 
ber he may grace a darker shade; and that his brother, a 
barbarian , may be swept away in the mounting tide of those 
rays, whose excessive glittering once, “from the sixth to the 
ninth hour” fastened on the uprisen orb of our light the 
darkest night. But our discussion being purely philosophi¬ 
cal, we must not indulge, touch the sacredness of theology, 
although it borders here along our territory. 

But the first question of our inquiry, confessedly difficult, 
remains—What is the 

PHILOSOPHY OF A DIVINE PROVIDENCE? 

Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch,—speak confidently of a govern¬ 
ing Power of the universe. The principal events of Homer’s 
song, are due to the agency and interference of immortal 
natures. Plato eulogizes the original artisan Force of the 
world, as controlling and conducting its affairs in time. 

7 O O 

From the reasonableness of the thing, Simplicius draws 
forth his argument for the belief of a Will, sovereignly free, 
who directs in the great action of nature. 

Reason on the steep brink of all thought, has generally 
conceived of two, capital, separate acts of the Divinity. By 
the one, he created the world, which was suspended on its 
completion: by the other, he preserves it from nihility. To 
this last must appertain all providence. But since we know 
not the artisan Divinity, these acts, nor the proportions 
which created beings sustain with him, such distinctions 
must be gratuitous, or arise purely from our manner of 
seeing. 

It is certain the universe was created at first; all its mem¬ 
bers have stood fast. The stars, which first shone, are still 
' ^ _ 7 
above our heads; the organic forms, which first lived, are still 

dashing on in the torrent of ages. All are progressing im¬ 
mortal on the great route of time. The mechanic force 
which impels them, must be steady; or what is the same 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


165 


thing, the active properties bestowed on each by creation 
have remained unwasted , unaugmented. These properties, 
for we know nothing beyond, are the fountains of all their 
motions and phenomena; and exerting themselves, are neatly 
the laws of nature. To these properties we intuitively at¬ 
tribute directly all their acts—as the stone falls, the mind 
thinks,—the flower blooms. If, contrarily, we attribute them 
to the original artisan Force, the logical phraseology will 
then be, God falls, God thinks, blooms,—which is Spinos - 
ism, Pantheism, and nearly the exact conception of Male- 
branche. Pantheism is providence, but is abhorrent to the 
improved understanding of mankind. Providence, through 
the active properties bestowed on all beings at creation, to 
be exerted in time, commands alone the sanctions of reason 
and religion. 

But in what co?isists the action on the world of the original 
artisan Force, which we call Providence? 

The primordial elements of their creation, these properties 
constitute all natural beings what they are; and to their in¬ 
nate activity are due, as just observed, all the acts, pheno¬ 
mena, these beings put forth in nature. Indeed, it is to their 
properties, as original, exciting causes, we are indebted for 
all our knowledge of them, our ideas being the action of these 
properties reflected upon us.* 

We see the mechanic force, which impels on the great 
route of time, or the properties of universal existence, put 
forth their efforts exactly equable in all duration. Thus 
the ratios, which measure any one cycle of the stupendous 
flights of matter, will precisely measure the correspondent 

* For example, the phenomena of the property of the extension of matter, 
constitute our ideas of space; of its motions, those of time. Having the ideas, 
we can conceive the existence of space independently of body. But body 
is the instrument of its manifestation to us, and without such intelligence as 
ours, could never have been sensible of its presence. In like manner, we 
can think of duration unmeasured, such as eternity; but without first having 
the perception of succession excited in us by moving points, as minutes, 
hours, &c., this sort of extension or time, would have remained unknown, 
being imperceptible without definitions. 

14 * 


166 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


cycle the most remote; any definition or dimension, it gives 
to space, the same definition and dimension. 

This perpetual equilibrium of effort, preserving the same 
eternal order and harmony in the progressive, material 
■universe, holds, and is equally true of the local properties. 
Each chemic atom of the most minute body is an immu¬ 
table entity , as much so as the worlds they form in space. 
The polar forces of oxygen , hydrogen , chlorine —of the integral 
bases* of all bodies, at this day, giving laws for their chemical 
revolutions, in an order forever unchangeable, were the polar 
forces of the oxygen , hydrogen , &c., of chemistry, when she 
drew her first breath at the creation. And if these forces 
have presented perpetually the same axis of each body in 
space, in the same relation to the central orb, round which 
they turn, they have preserved the same axis of every atom 
in every the smallest body of our planet, in the same rela¬ 
tion toward one another. It can but be conceivable, were 
these original forces or properties to vary the least, ruin, in 
a thousand forms, would seize on the world. The precise 
angularity, resemblance of the same crystalline bodies of 
the most remote epochs, again furnishes proof of the un¬ 
changeability of the material properties. 

The properties which animate vital and intellectual ex¬ 
istence, persevere with effort not less equable. We see all 
living natures come forth with the same organic forms, the 
same lineaments. And, cceteris paribus , mind exerts itself 
alike, all ages, laying up treasures for future generations. 

Every thing conspires to evince, that the properties be- 

* Due to the age of Davy.—(Philosophical Chemistry.) To these forces 
all molecular bodies owe their forms. According to Brand, they are either 
solid, liquid, or gaseous. Atoms of similar poles repel, and give origin to 
the liquid and gaseous classes; those of dissimilar poles attract one another, 
and form the solids. The sort of polarity in the atoms meeting, conse¬ 
quently, decides the class of the body which will be formed. 

Nature has need of the permanent forms of matter, as the atmosphere for 
respiration, which, according to these laws, would solidify, could the polarities 
of its atoms become dissimilar. She was, therefore, under a sort of neces¬ 
sity of fixing immovably these polar forces, in order to secure permanently 
the generic forms she needed in her material economy. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


167 


stowed at creation on all existences—matter in its cos- 
mologic and chemic forms; the organic natures throughout 
the zoologic and phytologic calendars; mind, in all its modi¬ 
fications in living creatures—from the first moment they 
began to exist, have exerted their pure cosmic actions with¬ 
out disturbance.* It would appear, these properties were 
designed, by the universal Opificer, to execute, in all beings, 
the separate acts they were to perform in nature, constituting 
their cosmic individuality. And, whatever influence He may 
exert upon them, it is they which act in the same order, and 
constitute essentially the action cosmic ox physical. For, if, 
in place of the properties, He directly excite a new action, in 
a new order, in any physical being, the action, in the logical 
structure of all language, is essentially uncosmic or divine , 
the action being attributable directly to Him, and not the 
properties, which is pantheism. But the universal forces of 
nature operating through all duration in an imperturbable 
order, as we have just seen, show that no such action or Pan¬ 
theism belongs to her economy. And, if each of her small, 
and her great actors received, at first, the properties, whose 
equable, undisturbed efforts were to carry them through the 
career of time; and if upon universal subordination and 
dependence, the safety of each, of the whole depends; and 
is sustained by the just and equilibrious energy, action of 
each, of all, giving to her an immovably fixed and inflexible 
course, in what has this course been bent by human oblation; 

* Geometry, in the sixteenth century, elated from the great flight she had 
just taken, laid her profane hands on the solar wheels, rolled them back the 
way they had come, through equal parabolas in equal times, expecting to 
find the chasm which had been made by the shadow going back on the dial 
of Ahaz, and by the sun stopping on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of 
Ajalon. Fixing the moment when the rupture occurred, by notable feasts, 
which are known to have taken place at the new or full moon, she proceeded 
with all possible precaution. But, when she again had got the sun over 
Gibeon, and the moon back in Ajalon, Joshua and the hostile Amorites in 
the same position, no chasm appeared; and all was smooth and even in the 
long thread time has drawn out. Who can calculate for human folly!—(Vid. 
Natural Method of Astronomy.) 


168 DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 

i 

where in this world of sorrow, is there room to hang np 
prayer; and where are the miracles ? 

PRAYER—MIRACLES. 

• ✓ / 

To-day, the sun is in Capricorn ; the unjust laws appoint 
the death of a good man. Could he by his pious offering, 
confine the sun in the winter solstice; by shunning his own 
death, he would doom the majority of his race to perish by 
frost. He is tied to the stake a martyr; could he through 
his piety suspend the consuming action of fire, he would 
call up public death in a thousand shapes. He is under the 
falling tower of Siloam ; could he modify the property 
bringing ruin, he would break loose the great connecting 
ligaments of the world. 

“Shall burning iEtna, if a sage requires, 

Forget to thunder, and recall her fires ? 

Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, 

For Chartre’s head, reserve the hanging wall?” 

It, therefore, cannot be, that the pious invocation of mor¬ 
tals retard, accelerate the motions of things, whose equili¬ 
brium is nature’s steady course; direct, modify, and bring 
about events, which otherwise could not happen, to accom¬ 
modate and advance their private good;—that the answers 
to prayer, are procured at the expense of the steady order 
and course of events, or are true miracles. 

Miracles* have really existed : but their forces temporary, 
they have left no marks on the face of things to bear testi¬ 
mony. They were needed; had their use in the moral and 
theosophical reorganization of the world; are monuments 
of divine condescension and goodness; eulogiums on our 
race. Their testimony is revealed history ; and philosophy, 
out of its province, should contemplate them timidly, and 
with hallowed sensibility. 

Besides, after all we may think, we know not all the 
springs, which move the universe: the eye of philosophy 
has not seen every thing. To the infinite worlds, which fly 

^ * \ 

* For their logical order, see, particularly, Campbell’s Dissertation on 
Miracles against Hume. 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


169 


in space, angels may administer the draught of gravitation; 
relume their fading fires; conduct on their course. Invisi¬ 
ble, subordinate spirits, may shape the living tissues ; weave 
the mystic filaments of the nerves, impel the vital flame of 
ages. 

Finally we conclude from the facts, and from the whole; 
1. That the action of the original, artisan force on the world, 
or Divine Providence, as intimated, is through the proper¬ 
ties, with which He has endowed all beings: 2. That, in 

these properties, was calculated, anticipated all the future 
action, or all the events they could achieve, and for which 
they were definitely instituted : 3. That our prayers or our 

minds praying are true physical causes, which operating with 
these properties or the other physical causes, of which they 
are a portion, bring about the events we desire; consequently 
the events, which are the answers to prayer, are physical, 
and of the great physical order: 4. That the future action 

or all events are certain : 5. Upon this certainty, we are 

commanded to pray in faith , pray always, not doubting, in 
all things giving thanks, for, upon this certainty, our prayer, 
as an operating cause, must infallibly achieve the desired 
event or answer : 6. That the final ends of the universe 

are of the highest excellence and good : 7. But that order 

will be maintained, however heavy it fall on the disobedient: 
8. And that in these properties, Divine Providence sove¬ 
reignly controls in the revolutions of the world, maintains 
its great equilibrium, and conducts it on a steady course, 
through infinite ages, across the abyss of time. 

. * j " i a . * • ) , p , 

MORAL EVIL. 

We have had occasion to mention physical disorder or 
moral evil, of which Seneca had the most lively conception, 
when he said:— Fulmina non mitti a Jove, sed sic omnia 
dispositci, nt ea etiam quce ab illo non fiunt: tamen sine 
ratione non fiunt: quce illius estJ The philosophical Seneca 
evidently believed God to be the indirect author of evil, 
which must be understood from quce illius est . No feature 
in Providence or the divine administration of the world, has 


170 


DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 


worried human reason more. We will close this long 
chapter by some reflections on death, which has ever been 
considered the greatest, and which the Stoics sought to sub¬ 
due, and hold in contempt by virtue. 

In the opposite hemisphere of our planet, let us conceive 
another race similar, but infinitely less fecund than ours, 
had been planted; and that this domain had been compe¬ 
tent to hold their expanding generations. More fortunate 
than ours, they have maintained the fair image of their first 
creation pure; and preserved their natural immortality. 

What must now be the personal appearance; the means of 
enjoyment, and the prospects for happiness of the ancestors of 
this people? Tanned by the burning suns of six thousand 
summers, their skins would have become solid involucra , 
hindering the freedom of motion. From accident every 
atom of their bones must have been crushed, and reknit 
together myriads of times, producing deformity; their whole 
flesh, from the friction and laceration of external objects, 
become one uncomely, frightful scar. From the una¬ 
voidable changes in structure by mechanical causes, and 
the consequent loss of symmetry, they would lose their 
suppleness and activity. They could have access to the 
tree of life of their paradise, eat its nutritious fruit, and 
enjoy immortality. But it would be immortality simply, 
without any of the noble enterprises, virtuous ambitions, 
lofty declarations, glory, which constitute life enjoyable. 
Their situation could not be much more enviable than that 
of Prometheus, chained to the rock on the frozen summit of 
Caucasus. For, we cannot suppose, because they are immor¬ 
tal, that their bones are not frangible; and their flesh subject 
to laceration and cicatrization. Nor can we conceive of any 
thing in immortality to prevent such accidents; and to sup¬ 
pose otherwise, would be to suppose them not men. Indeed, 
it would appear, that a living, immortal, organic body, 
launched on a sphere of our material activities, could have 
before it, but endless tortures; and could not measure its 
proportion of good, with the balance of things. How knotty 
and gristly, would one of these terrestrial immortals, we 


MATTER—ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


171 


here contemplate, appear by the side of one of the fresh 
shoots, and opening flowers of our dying and renewing race! 
In beauty and glory, how far would our life mortal outweigh 
this dull, stale, immortal life! And when we reflect that 
onr short life in the sphere of its future action is permitted to 
take in the great life of the gospel, how noble, transcendent, 
does the Divine benevolence appear, which, before our crea¬ 
tion, poised the good against the evil; and how sweet, beau¬ 
tiful does our mortality look out upon us! 


CHAPTER II. 

MATTER IN ITS RELATIONS TO TIME AND SPACE. 

All physical existences form but one system. We have 
just sketched the relation, and the historical action of the 
First Being on this system. Here we will contemplate the 
action of one of the great, primary forces; the action of mat¬ 
ter, in its connections with the two extensions of time and 
space, or in its cosmic productiveness. 


SECTION I. 

RELATIONS TO TIME. 

All bodies molecidar—molecular activity. 

Matter, first in the order of creation, exerted its forces 
first. Some of these forces, in their effects, are present, and 
occupy universal space.* All other forms of physical ex- 

* Since, if any new body were placed between any of our planets, it 
would instantly feel these forces, we must suppose they enjoy a complete 
ubiquity over all the spaces occupied by our system. Some philosophers 
suppose creation still to be progressing; and that the planetoids, Vesta, Pallas, 
&c., are not only new to us, but new where they are. All they required to 
start on their elliptic orbits, if such they be, was to respond to the solar weight. 
These forces extend probably infinitely beyond our system. 



172 


MATTER. 


istence coexist, and must constantly feel, reciprocate their 
action: All vitality, all mind play in them, and progress 
along time. Since all action, or, in the clear language of 
Laplace,* “L’egalite de 1’ action a la reaction, se manifesto 
dans toutes les actions de la nature: le fer attire l’aimant 
comme il en est attire: on observe la meme chose dans les 
attractions et dans repulsions electriques, et meme dans 
developpement des forces animales; car quel que soit le 
principe moteur de T homme et des animaux, il est constant 
qu’ ils recoivent par la reaction de la matiere, une force 
egale et contraire a celle qu’ ils lui communiquent, et qu’ 
ainsi sous ce rapport ils sont assujettis aux memes lois que 
les etres inanimes.” So that our planet, all its lives, all its 
minds, with the sun and other planets, form but one great 
complex, dynamical body or being. One code of laws all 
framed upon the same great model, answers for the action, 
preservation and government of all, producing, by their spe¬ 
cial modifications, the phenomena, results peculiar to each, 
subjecting all to one harmony and one unity of effort;— 
perpetual demonstration that the Creator is but One Great 
Unchangeable. 

The philosophy, then, which would contemplate any 
thing beyond the mere local properties and phenomena of ani¬ 
mated existences, upon which I write;—of man and animals 
mutilated, cut off from the supporters, disjointed and thrown 
from their place among things,—must behold them in the 
great action and influence of their world, by the dim lights 
lit up here and there, that gleam upon them. 

ARTICLE I. 

Dissuasives from such studij — Utility. 

But what benefit can be derived from such vast contem¬ 
plations ? Why waste my thinking forces on things I can 
never comprehend? In the study of myself, if I can under¬ 
stand the anatomical parts of which my body is composed; 
the forces, by which it is animated; the conditions, which 


* Expos. Systeme du Monde, p. 158. 



ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


173 


secure its welfare, what concern have I with any thing be¬ 
yond? and, certainly, I can arrive at such information, with¬ 
out a knowledge of general physics; without exploring things 
of which I can never reach the end. 

In like manner, what has the mariner to do with the distant 
north and south, and the distant heavens? His course is 
through the seas, not among the stars or inaccessible poles. 
He needs, you say, but the star which guides his course. 
But were not the motions of all the stars found necessary in 
constructing the sea-chart, by which he sails; and have not 
other sciences, arts furnished him the means of appreciating 
these motions, and knowing the place of the poles? Though 
his course be through the sea, his chart would be nothing 
to him, without these other means to enable him to ascertain 
his place on it. Thus armed with the knowledge of heaven 
and earth—of universal space—he launches, and finds his 
way infallibly through the great ocean; knows to what shore 
every billow tends; and beyond the waves of far-distant seas 
in another hemisphere, his mind’s eye gazes steadily on the 
destined port. 

So the philosopher, armed with different arts and know¬ 
ledge, with the great chart, logic of nature, spread out before 
him, launches on her vast ocean; sails steadily along; visits 
her different dominions; gains strength and clearer eye-sight 
as he advances; and passes into unexplored waters, where the 
ship of thought has never sailed. He makes new discoveries, 
which instantly advance the happiness of his species. 

The knowledge or science of any one thing in nature, 
would remain forever an enigma and unproductive, without 
that of others. You suppose you can understand the struc¬ 
ture, and what contributes to your organic good, without 
being conversant with the topics of universal science: But 
in the absence of a knowledge of the laws of light, general 
optics, what would be the meaning of the globular shape 
of the eye; and the humours of different densities, which 
compose it?—And how could the defects of vision, natural or 
from age, be remedied, procuring welfare? Let us study 
15 



174 


MATTER. 


rather what is laborious and useful, than what is simply 
glittering, and full of ephemeral pleasure. 

In the dozing, crazy age of the old world, sated, worn 
with the toil of reflection, our country must be destined to 
augment knowledge. The gaudy literature of the actual 
epoch, must give way to more efficient, substantial light ; 
and, in the sequel of ages, our America finish all thought 
begun, and solve the problems of science that shall remain. 

The science of man, and the beings demanding the same 
conditions in nature with him, which we study, will contain 
the greatest number of these problems. Their frame-work, 
or what constitutes their whole, is scattered over nature’s 
vast body, where it is to be contemplated; and must be 
gathered up to form his and their great picture. Corpuscu¬ 
lar matter forms their base; furnishes-the springs of all vital 
and intellectual activities—animates and sustains them. Let 
us study this matter. 


ARTICLE II. 

Progressive Knowledge — Perplexity — Uncertainty . 

% 

Since the Egyptians began to think and experiment—for 
the sciences came originally from the banks of the Nile— 
knowledge has been accumulating and advancing with a 
vibratory motion; and yet we may suppose our actual in¬ 
formation of the nature of body to be very imperfect. In 
our day, its science has become infinitely more complicated. 
The discovery and developments of galvanism; electro¬ 
magnetism; researches in electricity, the polar attractions; 
application of new data to the explanation of old facts; cor¬ 
rection of old errors; new and more luminous methods of 
investigation evolving new phenomena explicable, inexpli¬ 
cable, creating new science on science, have rendered the 
contemplation of corpuscular matter almost infinite. 

While the field of this science has been widening and 
new difficulties occurring, the science of celestial matter or 
uraniology, went up, the last age, as I may say, suddenly to 
perfection. One property reigns, governs all its movements, 



ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


175 


phenomena. From the exhaustless fountain of this pro¬ 
perty, geometry measured out forever the just proportion of 
motion to each celestial body; reason became satisfied;* its 
noise has ceased; and this fortunate science, subject like all 
others from its birth to change and amendment, now rests in 
comparative ease and quiet from the disturbance and depre¬ 
dation of philosophers. It will probably never change its 
great, fundamental principles; and has already reached the 
greatest perfection of which it is susceptible. Its certainty 
is the certainty of geometry, which brought it forth; and its 
truth can never alter. 

But how exactly opposite, how vacillating, uncertain is 
the truth of corpuscular matter—this matter so intimately 
connected with all that we are;—which forms a lodgment 
for our intelligence; breathing , we call our 'persons; inde¬ 
structible, is to emigrate with us to another life, perpetual 
partner of all our thinking and feeling in the two worlds. 
Every ray of light that falls upon it, but reveals some new 
darkness to hide it from us. Every truth gained by the 
hundred thousand minds pressing forward constantly in its 
discovery, only shows that millions more are left behind. 
The obtaining one truth only makes another one possible, 
keeping up solicitude; in getting one, which brings another 
within our reach, we get with it a thousand errors. To get 
rid of these, incalculable pains and toil are necessary. Some 
remain to worry long ages; some, forever. A great price 
must ever be paid for truth and certainty, which come to us 
through the media of error and falsehood. The truth, that 
can be obtained by us in any calculable amount of time, 
must ever be in infinite disproportion to what remains. If 

i 

* “So new and vast were the discoveries of Newton, and so great the 
changes he produced in the world of philosophy,” says Davy elegantly, 
“that they appeared in the eyes of other men, as objects do to those newly 
couched.” (Philosophy of Chemistry.) It was still, however, some time 
before his discoveries were generally accredited. Hook, Descartes, Leib¬ 
nitz, were able to hold him, to some extent, in rivalry. Miller wrote his 
“ Cause of Motion,” and Ogalahier his “ First Principles,” in opposition. 
St. Pierre, (Studies of Nature,) and a host of others, were without faith. 
But he rose, where he now stands, without a cloud. 



17G 


MATTER. 


we get light, it only multiplies the volume of darkness. And 
our speculative, experimental science, wandering down in 
its varied streams, can never reach the shore, where its truth 
mingles with the boundless expanse of parent truth. 

ARTICLE III. 

, „ ,*\ *» • » 

Improvements by the modern philosophers—prospects of 

chemical science . 

In the age of Empedocles, Galen, four elements com¬ 
posed this matter. Its science simple and easy, was soon 
comprehended. Now, as I have said, it has become almost 
infinite; and a whole life-time necessary to become familiar 
with its methods, and travel through its beaten route. Yet 
doubt, confusion, and perplexity hang over many of its 
most obvious facts; and reason struggles hard, not knowing 
what course she may pursue in their arrangement. In the 
actual epoch, Higgins, Berthollet, Bergman, Dalton, MM. 
Gay Lussac and Thenard, Wollaston, Young, Dulong, 
Davy, and a host of others, have attempted to tread in the 
path of nature; and exhibit a faithful record of her chemical 
phenomena in her own order. But how wide do their views 
often diverge from one another; and what great labor will 
devolve on posterity to thread out often the way truth has 
gone; approximate and reconcile their differences, as they 
have done for those who have preceded them? They have 
done much; discovered some truth—reared up the noble, 
proud edifice of the atomic theory , of which time must make 
Higgins the true founder, but which Dalton helped to build 
on the mother-ideas. They have built the vegetation—pre¬ 
pared thoroughly the fertile soil, planted irradicably the ten¬ 
der roots of all such truth ; posterity will witness the glory 
of their growth; and their sw 7 eet flowers must exhale the 
perfume of their names. 

They studied molecular attraction, on which depend the 
formation, decomposition—the existence, non-existence, of 
all chemical bodies. They ascertained the order, and esta¬ 
blished many of the laws of its operation. But its forces, in 
the different forms of matter, which fill the earth, and radi- 



V 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 177 

ate infinite space, in intensity, vary to infinity. Besides, 
innumerable circumstances, many impossible of detection, 
modify, suspend, or accelerate their activity. The field 
over which they play is boundless; far out-measures the 
forces of mind, which would follow them; and write the 
true history of their operations in the book of its science. 
The farther they are traced, the deeper the shade grows 
upon them; and necessarily so, since their ultimate action 
must be from the Omnipotent. 

From all, then, which has so recently been achieved—so 
many discoveries brilliant as triumphant, which adorn our 
chemistry—the science itself has only received a true exist¬ 
ence; and the course been fixed, it is hereafter to travel. 
And we may think, should our race continue millions of 
ages, governments become perfected, arts continue to ame¬ 
liorate calamity, it may still be advancing and accumulating 
discoveries; and, as they have been the glory of letters, still 
be the true glory of the world. 

But since chemistry is endless, why has the science of 
celestial matter so soon reached the terminus of its perfec 
tion? Is it, that the motions of vast masses, such as the 
stars, are more in our power, than the motions of atoms, on 
which the existence itself and constitution of these bodies 
depend? Like chemistry, perfectly demonstrative astrono¬ 
my is a new science. In the actual time, by the best minds 
our species can afford, twice the amount of labor, probably, 
that astronomy has received, has been lavished on chemis¬ 
try ; and yet the career of discovery is ending in the one; in 
the other, beginning. Can we know what is so remote from 
us better than that by which we are immediately surrounded, 
and in contact, nay, a part of ourselves ? 

Astronomy principally is but one great idea—that of a 
force always of equable fulness, uniformly expending; the 
amount exactly regulated by the quantity of matter and the 
distance. This understood, with the subtending angle, the 
relative weight, size, density, distance—all the celestial phe¬ 
nomena become comprehensible, and of sure laborious cal¬ 
culation. 


15 * 


178 


MATTER. 


Astronomy does not investigate the nature of this force; it 
only studies the ways in which it operates; and in it, accom¬ 
modates all the phenomena. So that if it were a million of 
district forces acting in concert, producing precisely the 
same results, and gravity, as it is conceived, had no existence, 
the science would remain untouched, and the same. But 
conceive each member of our solar system as atoms, gravita¬ 
tion, as aggregative attraction, which combines them into 

7 ZDtD O 7 

one body, and holds them together;—that this body now 
offer its molecular attraction, made up of the sums of each 
composing atom, to the other atoms or fixed stars in space. 
Repelling some, it attracts others, unites with them, com¬ 
mences revolution. In the course of definite time, it would 
run through innumerable changes, evolve a new creation of 
qualities, properties, new cosmic forms or worlds, the ori¬ 
ginal atoms remaining the same. In this transcendental che¬ 
mistry of universal matter, the mind would contemplate no 
longer simply the curved motion, but the mysterious, varied 
actions and results of this force impelling to these changes; 
would be misled in the labyrinth, and lost in the abyss, they 
would form; and we should have presented before us, the 
difficulties and perplexities, which torment the investigation 
of chemical bodies. 

Could its powders be sufficiently augmented, the micro¬ 
scope might present the atoms of the hardest bodies at the 
same distances as the sun and planets. We do not, however, 
suggest this as the existing order, for we know not what this 
order so remote may be: But if we were to conceive the 
worlds in space, as elementary bodies, eternally creating 
through their heterogeneous attractions, an endless series of 
new forms of material existence, themselves stable and un¬ 
changed in all their creations, as the chemic atoms are sup¬ 
posed to be; and could ascertain this to be the actual order; 
it would add new dimensions and vigor to our poor idea of 
the Omnipotent; and be in accordance with the law, that, by 
the most simple and fewest means, nature always produces 
the most abundant and diversified effects. 

The cultivation of chemistry, which contemplates the 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


179 


operations and phenomena of this molecular attraction, must 
continue all ages to make fresh contributions to our know¬ 
ledge of matter, while little may be expected from astronomy. 
Her methods of calculation are sufficiently perfected to 
answer all her purposes. By a sweeping generalization, she 
has reduced all the phenomena she studies to one law, be¬ 
yond which she has nothing to hope, Her theory is com¬ 
plete. If she add new bodies to our system, which probably 
she will, the principles of their calculation are already made 
out; and nothing but conjecture can penetrate beyond her 
limits. It is the simplicity of her attractions, and the cer¬ 
tainty of calculation, which have won for her perfection; and 
put her beyond progress. Her principal essence is empty 
motion, and a sort of idea of the volume of the universe; 
the intimate nature, constitution of worlds, and much more, 
exploring, isolated mortals could desire to know, being far 
above her forces. 

The hope of the knowledge of matter rests futurely in 
chemistry. Its essence is the knowledge and history of its 
complicated forms of attraction, and the phenomena—this 
attraction! the first impulse, fervid breath of the Divinity 
breathed on cor pores cent matter, which lifted it from chaos, 
giving it form and the form of forms—this attraction! the 
perpetual life bestowed at creation on each individual atom, 
constituting each a functionary to perform its destined part 
in the smallest bodies, in worlds, and the system or systems 
they establish in space. 

It is chemistry, that is largely the mother of the ingenious 
and industrious arts, which administers to our comfort, ele¬ 
gance and prosperity; which is subduing, and putting under 
the control of our race the great forces of nature, and ele¬ 
vating us to the supremacy, the lordships of this lower 
sphere. And, if ever we gain greater victory over disease; 
drive death farther from our cradle; abridge to an extent 
inconceivable now the process of labor; traverse the aerial 
as we do the watery deep, the honor will be greatly due to 
this science. 

Chemistry, the creatress, destroyer, arbitress, of bodies, 
generates, suppresses, modifies, and combines force upon 


180 


MATTER. 


force or against force, and forms a little corner of being, 
where man, as Chaptal so happily expresses it, is permitted, 
in some sort, to figure in imitation of his august Creator. 
The close dependences, and connections, which hold be¬ 
tween our existence and matter—its stimulations, which are 
the functions, its vital, molecular combinations, which are 
the organs—ought to continue felt the deepest interest, and 
solicitude for the perpetual progress of this branch of know¬ 
ledge. 

ARTICLE IV. 

Utility of atoms in the theory of matter—their energy — Phe¬ 
nomena of their first action. 

Philosophers, who study the constitution of bodies, have 
generally felt the necessity of fixing a terminus or echafau- 
dage , on which to rear up their reasonings in the form of 
doctrines, beyond which research is not to pass. Atoms 
constitute this echafaudage. All matter, as it now presents 
itself, is conceived to have originally been created in the 
shape of atoms, or to have sprung from them. 

All that can be said about their forms, must be conjectural. 
But the fixing of their properties, was necessary to account 
for the phenomena, and satisfy reason. Their effects fur¬ 
nish the solution to the properties, and it is a deduction from 
them. They are, therefore, hard , impenetrable , of various 
species , unchangeable , indestructible ; and endowed with dy¬ 
namical power or attractility —condition of separating and 
recombining. 

This attractility seems to have two modes of manifesting 
activity in probably most every species of atoms, the free 
tendency of which is to bring their axes in the direction of 
north and south or the poles are positive and negative. 

* When the English philosophers first exhibited, as a curiosity, the magnetic 
needle to the Chinese sages, and explained to them that the north pole at^ 
traded the extremity of the needle pointing to it, a dispute arose. They 
asserted to the English the reverse of their position was true—that their na¬ 
tion had ever held as an indisputable doctrine, even, it seems, before this 
needle was known to Europeans, that the south pole attracts the extremity 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 




181 

Dissimilar poles, as before noticed, attract, tend to aggrega¬ 
tion, solidity; but the similar repel, tend to liquidity or 
gaseousness. This hypothetical idea of matter created 
atoms, endowed with a varied and plenary attractility, 
through which reason is enabled to trace the history of the 
destruction and formation of the bodies they generate, locate 
the phenomena, ascertain and establish the order; mount up, 
and explain the great, finished operations of nature, which 
are only the complex expression of their simple actions, is 
sublime as beautiful. 

The solidity of adamant, the explosion of fulminating 
gold, and other compositions, show the prodigious, incalcu¬ 
lable energy of the different poles of these atoms—the little 
authors of all nature’s visible operations. 

On this view, that all existent bodies have sprung from 
original atoms; and that could chemistry now decompose 
them to their first elements, they would all resolve back into 
these atoms, it would appear, the attraction between oxygen 
and hydrogen, during the first epochs of nature, long pre¬ 
dominated over the aggregation of all other bases. The 
Ammonites , Orlhoceratites , existent, oryctologic exuviae of 
other extinct species, attest the primitive state of our planet 
was watery. It was upon water the Almighty w r ent forth, 
bringing order out of confusion. 

If this hypothesis of atoms be true history; and we con¬ 
ceive a sufficient number of them created for the formation 
of our system, armed with the power of attraction and re¬ 
pulsion, the force of which we witness in solidity, terrifically 
in the explosion of some chemical compounds, thunder, vol¬ 
canoes, steam; and all suddenly placed within the sphere of 
one another’s action, the hour of final creation, or when these 
forces were exerted to produce the present forms of nature, 
was an hour of most inconceivable struggle, violence, and 
uproar. And the “ bubbling, tossing deep“the red thun¬ 
der roaring up from its bottomthe destruction of Ymir, or 

of the needle pointing to it. We may suppose both parties had arguments 
equal in their favor.—(Vid. Staughnton’s Embassy to China.) 


/ 


182 


MATTER. 


something similar, which we read in the cosmologies of an¬ 
cient Scandinavia, Chaldea, India, as brilliant fancies, may 
have some pretensions to reality, as spoken of in the ark of 
Noah, whose early descendants peopled these countries, and 
orally, from Adam, who lived near enough this period. 

ARTICLE V. 

Impotency of Analysis and Synthesis—Speculations on the 
Natural History of Atoms—their general adoption. 

Could these two great methods of operative chemistry be 
perfected, or science of compound attractions, which are the 
sum of the atomic polarities—nature’s complete art of body¬ 
making—be perfectly understood, it is conceivable it would 
be possible, in some sort, to assign to each class of existing 
bodies its probable epoch and order of production back 
to the creation.* But such attainments are without hope. 
If analysis has successfully undone some compounds, and 
synthesis perfectly recomposed them, how many resist all 
effort; and especially among those of the organic class? 
Some philosopher produced pretty cleverly a mock egg of 
sulphur, albumen, et cet., but was unable to put round it 
the shell. The field of analysis is extensive; but in its de¬ 
structive decompositions the atoms often scatter, or undergo 
such changes, as not even to be registered or regathered for 
the reproduction. It is always easier to build downward 
than upward. 

The path of nature is shut up; the course bodies have 
come is not demonstrable. If part of the atomic forces, 
which guide the career they are making in time, and con- 

■> • •* , ■ j ' ;*' i / ' l 

* In our age, geognosy is taking a prodigious flight, and expanding light, 
mixed, however, with darkness, on many topics which, heretofore, have re¬ 
mained in the most profound obscurity. Chemistry holds up her flambeau, 
and contributes her aid. It is impossible to foresee where its discoveries 
will end, or what amount of truth it may uncover. The different ages it 
assigns to rocks and strata, or epochs of their formation, must be wide of 
certainty. A greater approximation may be made, but absolute truth, con¬ 
tinue impossible. 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


183 


trol their destiny, plays in the light, the other part plays in 
the dark. 

These atoms themselves are not properly bodies, but 
simply their cuncibulci: all on this side of them are of the phy¬ 
sical order; all on the other hyperphysical. They constitute 
the sum of all material, secondary causes. To these causes 
as revolutionary powers, we still attribute all the changes in 
the material forms. Created with a varied attractility, they 
constituted the first order of nature. All the bodies that exist 
were calculated, contemplated in this attractility, achieving 
instrument of the Divine Will. In all these bodies, we see 
a limited number, and a definite series. In their great 
masses, they are suns, planets, comets. As constituents of 
the earth or small masses, they are gases, liquids, solids; or 
the atmosphere, sea, land. The land again chiefly is metals 
and earths; their various combustions and acidifications are 
the principal ingredients; the sea is burnt gases, the atmo¬ 
sphere, gases unburnt; each class of combining bases, giving 
origin to a definite series, on which chemistry founds its 
nomenclature. 

Accordingly, we have just seen that this attractility of the 
rudimental world, has only two modes of activity, is limited 
in its action, must operate to definite results, such as the 
facts of matter before us present. 

The constitution of bodies is known to depend upon the 
equilibrium of effort of their composing atoms. This equi¬ 
librium overcome, their destruction or change of form is 
inevitable. All bodies are, therefore, phenomena of the 
equipolence of the varied activity of this attractile, parent 
force. This activity unequally modified, consequently, is 
the cause of all their revolutions. 

The work of the Divinity, these atoms occupy the first 
place in nature’s ponderous body. He originated, and 
clothed them wonderfully with operative powers ; and what 
they do is his own almighty work. He legislated upon them, 
and their order of being stood forth in action. By their 
efforts as secondary causes, they push forward, and evolve 
in space and time their varied phenomena, the special objects 


184 


MATTER. 


of his will. Pushed into action at the creation, they have 
continued still performing the same functions:—the stars 
burn, planets traverse space, seasons return ; the same body 
flashes in the lightning, thunders in the volcano, whispers 
in the zephyr, blooms in the rose, organizes in the worm, in 
the tissues of man, and becomes the instrument of feeling 
and intelligence. 

In all visible existences, we behold this universal, cease¬ 
less, progressive movement. Futurity presents itself as the 
common centre of a great magnetic attraction, to which they 
are tending, but which forever, as they approach, advances 
farther forward into the abyss of the future eternity. We 
know not the proportions of futurity; how far this move¬ 
ment will advance, or in what it will finally end. We love 
to contemplate its order, as the arrangement of the Great 
Being, of whom it can only be said I am, as appertaining to 
Him, the developments of His Will. Philosophy is an ab¬ 
solute want of our intelligence; we delight to meditate this 
stupendous movement of the universe; we feel interested 
in it; one day it is to land us in His presence. The farther 
we can penetrate into this order, the more the joy of our 
love and admiration is excited. We love the order, we must 
love the Orderer. Through the love of Him, through piety 
and humility, his truth so tragically established, we hope 
finally to arrive at his sojourn; to be eternally united with 
Him ; where this order will be more accessible to the labor 
of thought. But why do we think it lawful to approach 
Him only through the surviving essence of our minds; im¬ 
poverish our corporeal, and load with so many accumulated 
privileges our future, incorporeal life? Is He not omni¬ 
present now, as He will be then? On whatever w r e fasten 
meditation, we hear his voice calling. We love;—his pre¬ 
sence consoles;—may w r e not run after Him through the 
whole, great, future action of our world, the motion of aoes, 
in which we have travelled, carrying us still nearer to Him? 

All error is of us; truth, of Him. This action is the truth 
of things. We can only meditate it partially ; it is ancient 
to our reason; will be ancient. Its forces, as they exist in 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


L85 


matter, we suppose to be resident in atoms. These forces 
exist now; they must always have existed, and been coeval 
with body itself. They must have existed in corporific en¬ 
tities , or what w*e call atoms, or they would be effects with¬ 
out causes. Such entities created within the sphere of one 
another’s influence, the evolution of bodies, would be the 
orderly result of the operation of their excited forces. And 
such a view accords strictly with the great law already men¬ 
tioned : From causes the most simple, nature produces 
effects the most abundant arid varied. 

The first epoch or state of nature, consequently, was in¬ 
corporeal. This corporesccnt world, of which reason draws 
the picture, appears to us to meet some countenance in the 
sacred account of it: “ And the earth was without form, 

and void ”—enjoyed not its present qualities and properties, 
although it was called “ the earth.” 

Boscovich laid these archchemic atoms aside, and con¬ 
ceived, if we admit the separate, empty existence of attrac¬ 
tion and repulsion, by their exercise, they would produce in 
us the entire sense and perception of all the phenomena of 
the material world, we enjoy. If Boscovich be true, bodies 
do not yet exist; and all nature is but a spectral representa¬ 
tion or illusion. For, from the simple action of attraction 
and repulsion, it is inconceivable, that any thing besides, 
should proceed from them. B ut if we add to these attractions 
the atomic entities, the production of body is of easy and 
familiar conception. 

Although we may never profound this philosophy, and 
ascertain certainly, whether bodies arise from pre-existent 
atoms or something not they, the forces we attach to them, 
must inevitably be universally admitted, and admitted, too, 
as forming parts of created entities. For, it is such admis¬ 
sion alone, which distinguishes between what is physical 
and divine; and without it, as in our first chapter, we could 
never, in truth, predicate any action of any material being. 
Consequently, whether atoms exist or not, reason must ever 
claim, in their place, something of similar efficiency, or ban- 
16 



186 


MATTER. 


ish pantheistically from its philosophy of matter, all, second¬ 
ary causes. 

The doctrine itself of atoms is very old. It was long po¬ 
pular in Greece; and was embraced by a great number of 
illustrious men, who flourished in the annals of ancient sci¬ 
ence. Diodorus and Leucipus, in their atomology, made 
the atoms eternal. Thus they supplanted a Divine creation 
of the world, and fell into horrible atheism, of which the 
modern idea is a confutation. Atoms enjoyed the approba¬ 
tion of Newton, Davy,—are in use among all living philoso¬ 
phers. 

. v ' / »■ 

, y ' •, , - ~ . 

ARTICLE VI. 

Atoms limited in tlieir mode of productiveness—their innate , 
exhaustless susceptibility of new material existence. 

In the actual state of knowledge, all the variety of exist¬ 
ent bodies are regarded as being composed of about fifty- 
seven elements or first principles. In proportion as science 
has advanced in modern times, their number has increased. 
We may suppose all these elements still to be compound 
bodies; and, in their complications, removed almost infi¬ 
nitely from the pure, original elements or atoms;—that many 
of them will yet yield to the action of the voltaic fire—so 
successful in the hands of Davy—to the future action of 
analytic chemistry. 

The supposition, that these elements are compounds, is 
supported on the considerations:—1. That the terrestrial 
heat or temperature appears essentially due to the attraction 
to solidity, and to molecular movements, to which the solar 
rays are potent stimulators: hence the bearing of these rays 
on climate, on pliyto-zoogeny: —2. That before and at the 
commencement of this molecular movement for the first for¬ 
mation of bodies, the state of nature was inconceivably cold, 
as must now be the regions far removed from this movement 
or interplanetary spaces, the first degrees of which cold are 
felt on top of our mountains under the equator, and else¬ 
where:—3. That this movement of the first elements of 


ITS RELATIONS TO TIME. 


187 


bodies, because of original coldness, was extremely slow and 
sluggish at first:—4. That, in proportion as the heat was 
evolved or the temperature raised, this movement, with the 
evolution of the material forms, became accelerated :—5. That 
the forms produced in the lower temperatures, would, inevita¬ 
bly, be destroyed in the higher:—6. That this alternate gene¬ 
ration and destruction of forms would continue, until the two 
attractions, or that of solidity and that of expansion, hydroge¬ 
nation, became balanced; when these forms would begin to 
become permanent:—7. That if some bodies are instantly 
produced from their bases, others of more complicated at¬ 
tractions are the slower growth of time:—8. That, conse¬ 
quently, these first forms were of the simpler combinations: 
9. And that these combinations, become permanent from the 
steady equilibrium obtained between the opposing forces, 
would become the immediate bases of the more complicated, 
fixed forms; or the true elements of the permanently exist¬ 
ing bodies of chemistry and geognosy. These bases formed 
the great arena, where the elective and other attractions had 
their struggle, and through their uproar and tumult, brought 
the forms of matter to the states in which they have re¬ 
mained. 

In the present condition, under which bodies exist in na¬ 
ture, or in the equilibrium of the opposing forces, of which 
I have said they are the true phenomena, there are some, 
whose constitutions are so delicate, that they can scarcely 
exist at all, or exist only in certain states. The moment 
they are produced, some destroy through gasification, some, 
through oxydation, and other chemifactions. In the actual 
temperature, quicksilver remains thawed or liquid ; phos¬ 
phorus burns. If we were to conceive the thermal globe 
raised a few hundred degrees higher, most all existing 
bodies would lose their constitutions or change their forms. 
The sea would be vapor, iron, a liquid, quicksilver, a gas, 
phosphorus, like those fugitive forms I have just mentioned, 
of the rising temperature, from the molecular action, which 
produced the first successive series, would no longer exist 
in nature. And were the rates of the conflicting attractions 


188 


matte im¬ 


balanced still higher, or this temperature still raised, if the 
light of facts lead right, all the existing forms would become 
fugitive, as in their cold, primeval production; they would 
present new phases of existence, or fall into the impossibility 
of form. 

• i * 

The atoms or true elements, therefore, of all bodies in the 
present state of nature exhibit but a single phasis of their 
being; and, under a varying series of their condition, would 
be capable of unfolding the rich treasure of their forms now 
concealed, and presenting an infinity of new, material ex¬ 
istence—new worlds. 

* -s * * . 

ARTICLE VII. 

Place of Atoms in Nature—their logical order. 

From the reflections of this section, it is conclusible, that 
the molecular, dynamical forces can only impel the material 
forms through a limited series of revolutions, which the 
atomic theory confirms; that these revolutions never descend 
lower than the combinations, which first became permanent 
from the equipolence of these forces; and that, in the actual 
order, they will never ascend higher, or new bodies evolve 
futurely that do not already exist. 

The atoms with their forces—the true materia prima — 
therefore, occupy the first place in the material economy, 
constitute the active springs of ail bodies, and impel to all 
their morphogeny, morphological changes. 

But whence can they derive this ceaseless, changeless 
action, but from the Divine Omnipresence in which they 
play ? this ancient, eternal Motion, Activity, which worries 
the universe! for a sluggish, inactive Omnipresence is in¬ 
conceivable. This Eternal Motion offering its impetus is 
neatly natura naturans; they themselves, with their conse¬ 
cutive effects, natura naturata. And, since the ideas are of 
clear and distinct comprehension, we insist finallv, that all 
philosophical language should make the distinction between 
the natura naturans and the naturata. Would philosophers 
once adopt this logical distinction, all the obscurity and con- 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


189 


fusion, which have arisen, and perplexed from the neglect 
of it, 'would be banished forever; all physical and divine 
causation would no longer be confounded together, but would 
appear in a clear and intelligible light. 

\ 

SECTION II. 

RELATIONS TO SPACE. 

By the properties of extension or active impenetrability, 
body consumes, occupies space: or another body is prevented 
from existing in the same place at the same time. The 
relative position of space so occupied is place; or it is a 
modification of space produced by body. Body evidently 

defines space, and alone manifests it to our senses. 

) , 

ARTICLE I. 

Porosity—probable smallness of the real amount of matter 
| in space—hypothesis of the motion of atoms in curved 

lines . 

• 7 * r t A * ^ ? 

The number and extent of places or celestial spaces filled 
and occupied by bodies, manifestly, are in almost infinite 
disproportion, to the number and extent of those unfilled or 
empty. So that the great amplitude of space, contemplated 
in relation to the actual amount of matter it contains, is 
comparatively a vacuum. This vacuum, judging from our 
planet, must still be much greater or more complete, when 
we consider w 7 hat is highly probable, that the intermolecular 
spaces, or spaces existing between each composing atom of 
the hardest bodies, compared to these atoms, may be equal 
in size to the spaces between the heavenly bodies compared 
to these bodies. 

According to celestial mechanics, the density of the bodies 
of our system, diminishes as the distance recedes from the 
sun; so that, “ if the mean density of the earth,” says Nichol¬ 
son,* “be supposed to answer to that of common green glass, 

* Introduction to Nat. Philosophy, vol. i. p. 216. 


190 


MATTER. 


the sun’s density would be equal to that of dry pear-tree, Jupi- 
ter’s to cedar, and Saturn’s to cork;” or the exact, geometri¬ 
cal numbers of these four bodies are, 100, 94§, 36, and 400. 

According to this law of increasing porosity from the great, 
planetario-solar balance, the bodies, which traverse the ex¬ 
treme circuit of space belonging to our system, must be of 
amazing rarity: while those nearer the sun and exposed to a 
greater amount of calorific repulsion from the influence of 
his rays, only enjoy their proportional degree of density, 
since, generally, the more solid bodies are, the greater degree 
of heat is required to produce in them a given change. 
Whatever the rates of adhesive attraction may be, when we 
consider the number and size of the bodies of our system, 
that their mean porosity must be very great, and the number 
and extent of the interplanetary spaces, the amount of space 
actually consumed or filled, compared to the whole, must be 
extremely small. And, if what I have suggested as probable, 
be true, that the intermolecular spaces compared to the size 
of the atoms, be equal to the interplanetary spaces compared 
to the size of the planets, so that the sun with all his planets 
considered as a whole, forms a body solid as our common 
bodies, or as those of the mean planetario-solar density, the 
real amount of space belonging to our system filled, must be 
still much smaller. 

On the porosity of bodies, Newton erected geometrical 
data, by which w r as established the probability, that could 
the atoms composing our earth be brought into actual con¬ 
tact, its whole volume w T ould be so contracted, as to be con¬ 
tained “ in a lady’s snuff box.” The proposition is startling 
enough, and the most that can be concluded from it is, the 
bare possibility. For, neither the spaces, nor the volume of 
the atoms, which the most of the good savans conceive to 
be enveloped in electric or igneous atmospheres, are knowable 
or capable of measurement. Most all bodies may be con¬ 
densed, or the atoms brought into closer contact. The 
spaces really exist. 

We behold the earth with all the great bodies of nature, 
moving in curvilinear order through the spaces appropriated 


I 


% 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 191 

to them. May not one day, those to whom we will be the 
ancestors, discover, that all the molecules of chemical bodies, 
move, in like manner, through the spaces allotted to them; 
and thus another step farther be made into their real na¬ 
ture ? The reason, that the atoms of all bodies are placed 
at suitable distances from one another, as are the great bodies 
in space, will be understood; all matter will be clothed with 
one great type of movement, gravitation, all molecular attrac¬ 
tions, as they are now suspected, will be known to be one; 
and the venerable axiom of all antiquity, “ that nature loves 
circular motion,” be forever established. 

Upon the hypothesis of an aerial fluid flowing in opposite 
directions, or in different circles in magnetic bodies, Euler 
accommodated, and accounted pretty well for the phenomena 
of magnetism. Should this idea of a particular matter 
moving in circles, ever be extended to matter in general, 
then the ideas of this great man will stand in the archives of 
the illustrious achievements of mind, as the rude stones the 
first Greeks threw together for glory, before they learned to 
rear the noble column. 

If proportions are observed to hold between all physical 
existences, which connect them, and indicate their reciprocal 
properties, what is the meaning of these spaces between 
atoms and those of the stellar bodies, which, placed by the 
side of the real amount of matter they contain, present com¬ 
paratively a pretty perfect vacuum ? Since all motion de¬ 
pends upon empty space, they must indicate the prodigious 
mobility of matter, whose efforts necessitate, and make them 
useful in its economy. And, if they constitute the true 
measure of material energy, whose displays our science can 
appreciate for any definite time, how does its source triumph 
over all comprehension! The expenditure for our planet is 
about 60,000 miles per hour. We might conceive of power 
enough for such motion for one hour; but the supply to sus¬ 
tain such expenditure in so many ponderous masses through 
interminable ages, is fully inconceivable. 

In all the bodies by which we are immersed, this energy 
displays itself in the perpetual attraction and repulsion of 


192 


MATTER. 


all the particles; and in a ceaseless tendency toward the 
earth’s centre—tendency, that manifestly maintains the in¬ 
dividuality of the cosmic forms. The existence of spaces 
more or less great between the particles is incontrovertible; 
but their use, or the relations they sustain to the particles, 
which penetrate them in condensation, vibrate through them 
in the action of elasticity, await the future action and dis¬ 
posal of physics.* As already suggested, the intermolecular 
spaces may serve for some specific movement of the atoms. 
The balance of the dynamical, revolutionary forces, to which 
the existence of all chemical bodies is due, resembles very 
exactly the centripetal and centrifugal balance of the bodies 
in space; since, like these bodies, the constituent molecules 
are sustained where they are by the equal exertion of oppo¬ 
site forces. But whether their movement be in curved lines, 
or they move at all, cannot be determined. It is only from 
the analogy of universal motion, that their mobility may be 
suspected. 

The operations of our intelligence are too slow for the 
operations of matter. Nature presents her bodies already 
finished; in their transitions from one form to another, our 
senses cannot trace the intermediate stages. We are sensi¬ 
ble, for instance, of the properties of silex and potash, but in 
their chemifaction into glass, our senses are met with alto¬ 
gether a new set of properties. The two substances have 
not only changed in themselves, but mysteriously changed 
their relations with our senses; our mind has not progressed 
with the action, which formed the glass. The fact stands 
alone by itself. A piece of silk velvet is presented us with all 
the facts. We can wdtness a worm feeding on the leaf of a tree; 
the leaf or the mucilage elaborated by its living organs is 
drawn out, and dries a thread, the material of the manufac- 

* v ^ i - 

\ * * 

* It is true without a varied porosity of bodies, or specific gravities and 
elasticity, many of the familiar operations of nature could not take place; as 
the elaboration of clouds procuring the descent of rain; the healthy ventila¬ 
tion of countries; animal and human phonation, et cet. But these are only 
the remote sequences, and do not relate primarily to the porous state of 
matter. 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


193 


turer. We can behold the operations of the loom, the dif¬ 
ferent processes by which it is elaborated. But let us suppose 
this substance presented in nature’s manner, its existence a 
solitary fact. In the progress of ages, all the phenomena 
would be observed; philosophers would make efforts to gene¬ 
ralize these phenomena, and reconcile, square them with 
the existing laws of matter. Many theories w T ould exist, and 
many ponderous tomes be written. These theories would 
differ widely among themselves, but their general tendency 
w r ould be to connect the phenomena with these laws, which 
are only more universal expressions of facts; and the velvet 
would receive a name accordingly to the conceived manner 
of its production. New discoveries in other substances 
w r ould be made, which would contradict this manner of for¬ 
mation, when these theories would become obsolete; and in 
proportion as these discoveries advanced, new ones take their 
place. In progressive time, sages like Pythagoras and 
Newton would rise, go beyond all antiquity in some new 
and more plausible conjectures, fix the limits to human 
research, and burthen the world with the loud noise of their 
fame. But is it likely, by all the observations, researches, 
that could be made, while ages endure, that any of them, in 
their account, would ever thread out, think of a silk worm , 
the mulberry leaf ] and the manufacturing loom? Nor can 
we tell, beholding only the finished work, what that labor 
of the particles in bodies may be, upon which depend the 
eternal perpetuation and rejuvenescence of the world. 

—a ' H 1 • ■ „ * i 

ARTICLE II. 

Beauty , grandeur of matter in space—immensity of its 
action—disproportion of our Senses. 

In space bodies extend, and through the exertion of the 
impenetrability of their molecules, keep other bodies from 
occupying their place. Thus they maintain the distinctness 
of their forms in all their changes; and display those pro¬ 
perties which affect our senses, and by which we become 
acquainted with them. If the molecules are on the career 


194 


MATTER. 


of ceaseless changes; in celestial space, where our earth 
appears a luminous and glittering star, though dark on its 
face to us, the great forms of matter make their perpetual 
revolutions. 

But in space simply we can see but little of them; they 
pass over the field of our observation, and return; and what 
they do, darkness with all its shades is ever ready to con¬ 
ceal. It is in the compound of time and space they display 
their colossal strength;—that matter manifests its immensity, 
its titles to lofty grandeur and dignity; and impresses upon 
us the greatness, majesty of the Creator. 

These are the “wandering fires” of elder times, which 
inspired the Thracian bard with tuneful song; which San- 
choniatlion saw with overpowering sense; on which the 
shepherds, when the light of astronomy was kindling, gazed 
at night on “high Idumea’s top,” or by the side of “ Tagus’ 
noisy stream.” 

How has man figured in this mighty duration! Since 
then, how many mighty, noisy empires have risen and 
fallen ! Where is the huge sceptre of the Babylonian, the 
Persian, the Greek, the Roman; where are those overgrowm 
lives, which filled so often the w T orld with tumult and up¬ 
roar ; where are all those chariots of w T ar, and the blood 
spilled for glory; and where is that long caravan of genera¬ 
tions, in which myriads of millions of men since have trod 
in one another’s footsteps? They are stilled; effaced; they 
are nothing; and what they meant to be eternal with their 
names, has perished, passed as the ripplet on the water. 
Man in this duration weighs lighter than the breeze; he 
floats in it as gossamer, the thinness of nothing. Organic 
man, anorganic worlds!—there is no proportion—they will 
not measure together. 

Still here they are, the same “ wandering fires” that 
shone in the first blue sky; which routed, chased away the 
night of primeval eternity, their order, strength, beauty, 
glory unwasted. Here they are “the torches” still that 
“rove above,” spheres proportioned in magnitude to the 
vastness of the spaces they traverse, forever melting into 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


195 


oceans of liquid brilliancy, but never dissolved. Their do¬ 
minion fences out the chariot of death; they are without 
antiquities. No bone bleaches on the field of their high 
dwelling; nor does the narrow house find room for the thing 
which had form to crumble. No pulse has uncertain beat, 
or leal of autumn’s to mar the freshness and beauty of im¬ 
mortality. Flow down from them forever, in equable ful¬ 
ness, broad, deep torrents of mixed light and fire. These 
torrents fell on the garden of Paradise, when the tall palm 
and poplar, the leafy tree first expanded the shade, amid 
which the first father of men wooed to his bosom the blush¬ 
ing creature sprung from his own substance. They have 
fallen on the tombs of all his children, the tombs of nations, 
which have crumbled, disappeared. These same torrents 
from the same lountains, drench the earth of living men. 

In this dozing epoch of things; time to let go existence, 
when ruin is sated, so many passed to the quiet of nothing¬ 
ness, here I say they are still. What are they! old without 
age, w T orn out, unworn, lived over the being of every thing 
beside unhurt; being that cannot unbe, worrying on alone 
in the abyss of eternity ! What is their enigma? mirrors of 
the Divinity, in the reflection of which we live?—we have 
revelation pure: ornaments, that decorate the landscape, 
which borders round the palace of nature’s sovereign? domes, 
houses of an ancient race of an ancient creation, of men 
mortal by organization or immortal by the adjustment of the 
laws of matter—scenes of civil, social life, of the temples of 
philosophy, letters, religion, government? lights, that guide 
from w T eary lands? What are they? Their streams wash 
up and chafe against the long shadow, beach of time, dread¬ 
ful to us w T rong with ourselves. To get where they are, 
what power have they expended? to get on further the same 
power remains. What infinity, how inconceivable ! Pre¬ 
pared for flight at creation, they have continued since to 
traverse thousands of miles per hour. Where is the great, 
holy sanctuary of nature? are events transpiring there, which 
necessitate such everlasting, rapid motion, and which con¬ 
nect such flight, motion of matter in relations to things, we 


196 


MATTER. 


cannot think?—And their enigma appertain to an order, 
dispensation, we have not known? of which our mind, tram¬ 
meled in organization, may feel the wonder, but cannot, dare 
not think the great meaning. 

In the perpetuity of its noble forms, and stupendousness 
of its great functions in the universe, matter seems to triumph 
over, sw r ell above the diminutive stature of our thinking 
nature, and shrink it into insignificance. But once we are 
decomposed by death, we shall be out upon its immeasurable 
field; and if it triumph temporarily here, we shall hold it in 
rivalry, and approach nearer the Fountain, of which it reflects 
only the palest and feeblest rays. 

All our meditation upon it, but excites the more our asto¬ 
nishment, Its great story, as broke to us by our senses, 
can contain but little of the true meaning. Enveloped our¬ 
selves in its dark shadow, we can see neither of its two ex¬ 
tremes; and what we do see, we can compare but imperfectly 
with what is unseen, and thus push forward our conceptions. 
Besides, are not our senses proportioned to our existence, 
which is itself only a single element of our world, occupying 
but a speck of time and space ? and is it not probable, as 
Fontanelle has observed, that they do not recognize one of 
its facts in a thousand, and were their number increased, its 
properties and phenomena would be increased proportionally 
to us? Hence, partly, in the study of its operations, so 
many unanticipated results occur. It is its simple phe¬ 
nomena our mind contemplates to most advantage, as will 
appear shortly, when we shall study its dynamical connec¬ 
tions and influences on organic beings. There can exist but 
little doubt, could we comprehend the philosophy of matter 
perfectly, there would be but little difficulty in understand¬ 
ing the nature of all vitality and intelligence; and, that every 
step we advance in this philosophy, will be so many steps 
made towards the knowledge of our own abstract humanity. 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


197 


ARTICLE III. 

' 4 •, ... , 

Operative or functional forces of bodies. 

“ Ii the laws of the material universe,” observes the Mar¬ 
quis de Laplace, “ are competent, through infinite ages, to 
maintain its actual order, it is inconceivable they can ac¬ 
count for this order itself” The origin ating Cause being dis- 
tinct from them, they only by their operation preserve it, the 
regulatorum regulantia. Since the great composing bodies 
have different temperatures, densities, magnitudes—circum¬ 
stances peculiar—which modify the universal weight and-' 
centrifugal force, each demands a place or sphere of activity 
in the distribution of the whole peculiar to itself This order 
was necessitated to give these laws efficiency in preserving 
each in the place proper to it, and proper to the whole. 

The distances at which they, are located, prevent their 
molecules from mutually preying upon one another, and 
spoiling their forms, this law of attraction and segregation 
being limited in its operation only to short or imperceptible 
distances. This force or law so fecund in changes of our 
terrestrial matter, with equal or greater activity probably 
agitates all matter, since we see the celestial bodies repel 
unceasingly from their surfaces, oceans of radiant particles; 
and, in relation to other forces, which are universal, may 
be styled local. 

Every atom in all bodies exists in a state of ceaseless 
attraction or exertion of this local force, by which they are 
preserved through each successive instant of time. And 
we can but perceive, had each atom in individual bodies, at 
the first formation, enjoyed an attraction for its fellows supe¬ 
rior to that of all others, every form of matter had remained 
permanent, indestructible. But such order of combination 
did not hold; atoms of feebler attraction for their fellows 
than for others, went into forms which have subjected all to 
revolution; and probably us, with all organic existences, to 
death. 

If chemical bodies are sustained by the constant, equili- 
17 


198 


MATTER. 


brious exertion of their formative forces, or that of the attrac¬ 
tion to solidity and that of hydrogenation or repulsion, the 
astronomical bodies are preserved by the constant effort of 
the attraction, which disposes and keeps all their parts or 
their bodies about their respective centres. This attraction 
is known to be the same as the universal weight, which 
modifies as the squares of the distance are modified. This 
weight, with the centrifugal impetus, which, in effort resem¬ 
bles repulsive molecular attraction, maintains and regulates 
their orbitary motions or their places in space. The sun’s is 
the reigning empire force in the system. This force radiates 
• in every direction from him indefinitely through space, and 
grows weaker as the squares of the distance from him in¬ 
creases. The universal weight, one of the first conditions 
in all celestial motion, is the excess or predominance of the 
solar force over all the planets. If x represent the sun’s 
w r eight, and y that of all the planets, x-y will be the neat 
expression of this weight, which, with the centrifugal impe¬ 
tus, as I have said, sustains the great action of the system. 

The opposing forces, which govern in the morphologic 
vicissitudes of bodies, the attraction essentially cosmic, which 
sustains about the centres of the sun and planets all their 
parts, the centrifugal energy, which is contrary and in its 
efforts constantly opposes this attraction, constitute the first 
elements, conditions of the existing order of the material 
universe. All corporeal phenomena, the great solar move¬ 
ment, are due to the conjoint exertion of these varied, oppo¬ 
site forces. The amount each world reciprocally displays 
in space, is the sum of all the composing atoms. Under all 
the modifications of distance, magnitude, temperature or 
density and porosity, astronomy has measured their precise 
action; and claims to be the most noble monument of hu¬ 
man genius and persevering labor. Animated by these 
different kinds of force, all geological and chemical bodies 
pass through their changes; the sun and his planets per¬ 
form their revolutions or discharge their functions in their 
economy; and administer to the life and intelligence, they 
all may nourish as their appanage. 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


199 


The discovery of the universal weight or the reciprocal 
attractions, of which Kepler developed the laws,* and New¬ 
ton made the general application, could only be the work of 
ages, after a vast number of observations had been carefully 
made. It presented the capabilities of matter for action in 
novel light. A dogma had long reigned in the schools, that 
nothing can act and produce effects where it is not. The 
simultaneous activity of Divine Providence in all places, 
would be accounted for by his omnipresence: But matter 
reciprocally exciting motion in matter throughout all space, 
the idea of which reason had brought forth, was not so easy 
of explanation; was contradicted by the plain truth of this 
dogma, which enjoyed the applause of common sense; and 
was slow of faith. We may suppose Galileo before the In¬ 
quisition was wholly incapable of convincing his judges of 
the truth of this great law of matter, which he had demon¬ 
strated, and his reason felt.f 

This dynamical property resident in all the molecules of 
bodies, which excites reciprocal motion in them, however 
remotely they may be situated from one another in space, 
though completely beyond the field of all research, has not 
remained secure from the conjectures of philosophers. Des- 

* In his De Stella Martis. _ r ' , 

t From Laplace, Expos., p. 352, I extract the oath prescribed to him, the 
terror of ignorance, the future terror to the rulers of nations. “ Moi, Galilee, 
a la soixante-dixieme annee de mon age, constitue personnellement en jus¬ 
tice, etant a genoux, et ayant devant les yeux, les saints evangiles que je 
touche de mes propres mains; d’ un coeur et d’ line foi sinceres, J’ abjure, 
Je maudis, et Je deteste 1’ erreur, 1’ heresie du movement de la terre.” 

In an article on his life published in the Lib. of Use. Know., Mr. Drink- 
water states, that both Galileo’s and the book of Copernicus, Nisi corrigatur , 
were still to be seen on the forbidden list of the Index at Rome, in the year 
1828. President Lyell, however, informs us, he was assured in the same 
year by Professor Searpellini, that Pius VII., a pontiff distinguished by his 
love of science, had procured a repeal of the edicts against Galileo and the 
Copernican system—That the late Cardinal Toriozzi was desirous to wipe 
this scandal from the church ;—the repeal was carried with the loss only of 
a single vote;—and that, long before this time, the Newtonian theory had 
been taught in the Sapienza, and all Catholic universities in Europe, with 
the exception, perhaps, of Salamanca. 


200 


MATTER. 


cartes conceived of whirlpools or vortices of subtle matter, 
in which he placed the heavenly bodies, and by which he 
accounted for their motions. Newton suggested interplanet¬ 
ary media or sether; Hutchinson and his school, the alter¬ 
nate rarefaction and condensation of the planetary atmo¬ 
spheres by the solar flame. These views make the power of 
gravitation purely mechanical. Laplace regards attraction as 
a radiating power; and from some circumstances connected 
with the secular equation of the moon, conceives the velo¬ 
city of its transmission from one body to another is fifty 
thousand times at least greater than that of light. 

Mortals would see the fountain, which supplies the uni¬ 
verse with motion; may he transported by the pleasure, the 
insanity of knowing; lop off and fritter away the work of 
the Infinite Mind to fit it to the narrowness of sense, but 
the mechanism of attraction still remains a profound secret 
of creation. Motion is truly measurable * but mobility is 
immeasurable, incomprehensible. 

Impenetrability .—Impenetrability, one of the great, func¬ 
tional forces, like molecular attraction, is a local property of 
matter. So energetic is its action, in the opinion of Mr. 
Locke, that, if all the bodies in the world were pressing even 
a drop of water on all sides, they could never overcome it, 
and approach in contact. It exists in, and is exerted alone 
by the atoms. The spaces between them in bodies are pene¬ 
trable ; and on their proximity or remoteness, all the modi¬ 
fications of solidity depend. I believe it is generally admit¬ 
ted now, that the molecules of most all bodies may be made 
to approach more or less; or that bodies very generally are 
compressible. By the ingenuity of modern chemists, we 
know many of the gases always existing heretofore in the 
gaseous state, have been compressed and made to assume 
the liquid form. It is the spaces alone, and not the atoms, 
which admit of compression, since, by the law of their im¬ 
penetrableness, each must ever exist, and occupy its own place 
separately. 

While mobility, or the law of universal weight, relates 
directly to the extension and evolution of time, impenetra- 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


201 


bility looks to the extension of space. From the observation 
and generalization of facts, we can but perceive, our material 
economy is connected in the most absolute dependence, all its 
parts exhibiting the most complete adaptations and symmetry; 
that nothing is accidental, but that their different magni¬ 
tudes and positions, their qualities of opaque and light-bear¬ 
ing ; all their forces were calculated by the truth of original 
geometry. And since they pass through continual changes, 
this original order of necessity is to be maintained. The 
physical laws, of wdiich impenetrability is one, combine in 
their operation, as I have said, to this end. Let us suppose 
the action of impenetrability to suspend, while the other 
active forces continue on. These bodies contracted or shrunk 
to mathematical points,* would persevere in their motions, 

but their order would not be the same, since magnitude, as 

° . 

the effect of porosity, modifies the universal weight. By its 
equable action, their great magnitudes are maintained al¬ 
ways the same, and the motions of the celestial horologe 
kept steady. Since the different densities or magnitudes of 
the heavenly bodies are fundamental elements in their me¬ 
chanics; or since magnitude alone modifies the distance, 
which, with the quantity of matter, modifies the universal 
weight and the centrifugal energy, impenetrability by acting 
on space, makes it functional in the economy, reigns an em¬ 
pire force, and helps to preserve its eternal order. It is, as 
I may say, a principal essence of matter, and the fulcrum, 
on which all its attractions act. 

/ / ‘ * * ’ V « 

REFLECTIONS. 

Philosophers regard some of the great movements in na¬ 
ture, very appreciable in the satellites of Jupiter and the 
moon, as having partially ceased, and tending still to dimi- 

* To our perceptions, impenetrability is the most conspicuous as well as 
the most peculiar property of matter, which distinguishes it from other natu¬ 
ral existences. It is therefore strange, that Dr. Priestley, who manifested 
much acumen in his chemical researches, should have attributed active im¬ 
penetrability or extension to mind. Nature unites the two in one movement, 
but does this mental extension help any our comprehension ? 

17* 


202 


MATTER. 


nish, their causes discontinuing to act, or acting with less 
vigor now than in ancient times. They consider that 
movable sea-w T ater or rolling oceans, cacuminal inequalities 
on the surfaces of the planets, other quietable conditions, 
must have occasioned great librations or oscillations in their 
first movements. These w T aters, in progressive time, if these 
inequalities may not smoothen, would naturally tend to an 
equilibrium, or quiet with other causes, which would dimi¬ 
nish the oscillations, or secure greater regularity to their 
motions. Some of the causes, therefore, which agitated the 
planets in their early movements, have tended to equili¬ 
brium, and, in proportion, their action quieted. 

We see the great masses of matter are making ceaseless 
revolutions in space, while the atoms are traversing an ever 
changing, renewing series of fugitive forms. This latter 
phenomenon appears due to the inequalities of the attractions 
of the atoms in different bodies at their first formations, 
which has continued, and subjected the atoms, in their 
mechanics, to continual librations or oscillations in all their 
morphogeny, or changes of form through which they pass. 
In the determinate, dynamical conditions, to which nature 
has subjected these atoms, does the operation of their attrac¬ 
tions, in the series of ages, tend to equilibrium ? Are their 
oscillations in the transition of forms like those of the early 
planets, growing less; or will ever all the highest ratios of 
their attractions meet together in the same forms, and they 
remain always permanent ? 

These are vast inquiries, problems, which demand for 
their solution durations of time much superior to those of 
all our ages; and an accumulation of observations unknown 
to all philosophy. There are some facts in favor, and some 
opposed to this ultimate equilibrium and quiet of these pre¬ 
daceous atoms, engaged in an eternal struggle, war with one 
another. 

Facts in favor .—There are some of the material forms 
which are known to have remained unchanged since beyond 
all history. Strabo, all antiquity, speak of the sandy wastes 
of equatorial lands, these hot, burnt embers of the sun still 


ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


203 


burning. In the extreme Boreal and Austral regions, where 
all chemical movements are extremely sluggish, we may 
suspect the forms of matter to exist in great fixedness. The 
geognosts regard a certain order of rocks, on which the 
earthy layers rest, as primitive , stretching back through 
the annals of unknown time. We know the molecules of 
gold, silver and some other metals, manifest but little appe¬ 
tency, capability of attacking other substances, or of being 
attacked by them. In his Political Economy, M. Say men¬ 
tions some of the precious stones of extraordinary size, in the 
possession of some of the reigning houses of Europe, which 
have not lost their beauty and value in a thousand years. 
Cuvier and Brogniart consider the bones of certain animals 
as very little susceptible of changes by time. In all these 
bodies, and perhaps many more, the molecules appear to 
have reached the quiescent state. It is not, therefore, strictly 
philosophically true, that, Omnes labores naturce magnos 
delent dies , quos detulerant. 

Facts opposed. —We observe the molecules of some bodies 
are held together by so feeble an affinity, that they vanish 
almost as soon as they begin to exist; in their duration are 
ephemeral in the extreme. Phosphorus, as I have said, can¬ 
not be native at the thermal rates of the planet, but requires 
to be reduced, and preserved by art. If the chemistry of the 
arctic and antarctic regions is quiet, and matter there enjoys 
a great share of chemical repose, this want of activity is 
compensated under the temperate zones of the world; and, 
if the sun controls in the orbitary motions, he shows him¬ 
self the right arm of all operative, chemical power. So 
great, indeed, is the despotism of heat alone, or so great is 
the dependence of the constitution of bodies upon it, that 
they appear little other than the mere creatures, evanescent 
phantoms of its frantic motions. They are solid, liquid, or 
aerial, as its proportions vary; nor can we tell what they 
would be in unknown high or low temperatures. 

If other causes hindering the equilibrium of the molecular 
attractions, should disappear, the periodical returns of the 
great flame of the sun would be sufficient to stimulate their 


204 


MATTER—ITS RELATIONS TO SPACE. 


rebellion. Besides, oxygen itself is known to possess almost 
an universal affinity to combine with the elements of bodies. 
Like the lion and the eagle among animals, it can prey upon 
them. Such an agent in nature alone would appear incom¬ 
patible with their permanent rest. With all the active, dis¬ 
quieting forces, it is, therefore, highly improbable, the mole¬ 
cular attractions will ever reach repose, and the material 
forms attain to greater permanency than they already pos¬ 
sess. 

Even if the native attractions ail tended to this permanency, 
the cause of organization would operate detrimentally. This 
cause, however, acts only on certain forms of matter, which, 
according to Sniadecki,* are the true viable elements .f The 
susceptibility of these elements of the vital attraction, or 
their passage to the living state, may be considered as one 
of the final sequences, for which matter at first was distri¬ 
buted in space, and the great movements, we have passed 
in review, were established. Of this final sequence we 
can know something. Mind does not come forth to exist 
in nature by its own power; we see it evolved with life to 
hold peculiar relations with the Divine Creator, and be 
eternally active in the enjoyment of his goodness, or his 
justice. Of the other great final sequences, which lie con¬ 
cealed in the stupendous volumes, eternal motions of worlds, 
in the compages they form, we are in the most absolute 
ignorance. Matter is visibly undergoing a vast labor in 
space, and we may suppose, tending in proportion to pro¬ 
ductiveness. 

The molecules of the viable matters , which constitute but 
a very limited portion of the earth, cannot repose and life 
progress. We, therefore, conclude, finally, if a greater 
number of the azootic forms, as the equatorial sands, the 
primitive rocks, the precious stones and metals, may arrive, 

* Vid. Theorie des etres organises. 

t Since gen or gene from yivoiiai, I produce, is one of the chemic terminals, 
and vita] chemistry is in common use, we should think biogene would be 
more in the fashion of our modern nomenclature. 


PROPORTIONS OF MAN. 


205 


in future nature, to greater stability, the viable elements must 
continue to play in the living whirlpool. 


CHAPTER III. 

PROPORTIONS OF MAN WITH NATURE—HYPOTHESIS OF THE CO¬ 
EXTENSIVENESS OF ORGANIZATION AND LIFE WITH MATTER. 

Some philosophers, egotists, regard the world as having 
been formed exclusivelv for the use, accommodation and 
enjoyment of man. It is a throne on which he sits and 
exercises his sovereign authority over the lower orders of 
creation. He came forth at his birth a crowned head for the 
inheritance. The tuneful Pope sings this egotism : 

“Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, 

Earth for whose use ? Pride answers ’tis for mine, 

For me kind nature wakes her genial power; 

Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower. 

Annual for me the grape, the rose renew 
The juice nectarious, and the balmy dew ; 

For me the mine a thousand treasures brings; 

For me health gushes from a thousand springs; 

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, 

My footstool earth, my canopy, the skies.”* 

We see a definite series of animated existence, all con¬ 
nected together by traits of organization and function. Of 
this series man is simply one of the extremities; his foot 
presses oppositely to that of the zoophyte. Whatever per¬ 
fection he possesses, must be shared in proportional degree 
by the other parts of the series.. Some, as the eagle, the 
horse and the dog, in the exercise of particular senses, are 
his superiors; but in the excellency of his structure, general 
sensibilities, and resources of his mind, he prodigiously 

* It looks strange, at this time of day, that the author of the Divine Lega¬ 
tion, Warburton, should have defended the Essay, from which these lines 
are taken, against the just censures of Professor Crousaz. If the poetry is 
Pope’s, the philosophy manifestly is Bolingbroke’s, so detrimental to the 
good of the world. 



206 


PROPORTIONS OF MAN. 


excels them all, leaving a visible space between him and 
his nearest neighbor—space which separates between hu¬ 
manity and brutality—brutality, the inferior humanity of 
his inferior kindred. Like him, none of them hunger in 
thought; pine after the ways of nature; plunge her immen¬ 
sity seeking their God; know her proportions of past and 
future; lift up over her the horizon of philosophy to encircle 
her great form; aye, pass beyond her to look at the naked 
Uncreated. None of them burn after the phantoms of glory, 
immortality—the things plastic fancy has shaped;—sigh 
eternally after new pleasures, contriving, cooking, tool- 
making. 

But if he derives these superior excellencies from the 
greater perfection, tunefulness of his structure to respond 
more actively to the laws of organization, and the governing 
laws without, in the same proportion, this excellency sub¬ 
jects him to the action of unhealthy, atmospheric meteoriza- 
tions, to the action of a greater number of causes of pain, 
sorrow and death. 

Like many of them, he is predaceous; his teeth look to 
carnage, and the tearing of flesh. If the world was made 
for his special use, many of them more voluminous than he, 
are armed with much greater fecundity, outweigh him far 
in the amount of actual being, and have usurped his rights. 
Many are privileged with longer life. If he be the great 
object of formation, why is there so much rich soil buried 
irrecoverably beneath the waters, so many inhospitable shores, 
marsh-miasmatic, poisonous regions, uninhabitable heights, 
frozen lands, sandy, rocky wastes, frightful deserts ? Why 
is the terrestrial crust in the progress of geological changes 
incompatible with the unity of his existence, which, in the 
vicissitudes of ages, if geological science be the true light of 
nature, may operate his extinction, as they have done for 
many of the Edentata, and others of his near neighbours? 
Why does he dwarf toward the polar circles, and sink into 
brutishness under the equatorial heat? If he is a sovereign 
he is a slave to his passions, and to procure frugal subsistence, 
his royal hands are required to labor incessantly. If the 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


207 


earth be his inheritance, why are the Indians of the two 
Americas, under the exterminating action of civilization, pass¬ 
ing away, soon to strike from the living calendar? In like 
manner, under the desolating light of letters, or the power 
they place in the hands of a portion of the species, all the 
barbarous nations of the other three parts of the world, who 
will not, can not enlighten , not very futurely, must become 
extinct. And finally, according to the geognosts, other crea¬ 
tures long enjoyed the earth by themselves before his ap¬ 
pearance ; why if for him, was his arrival so late? 

Man has his fixed limits in nature, and constitutes only a 
solitary item in the great sum of things, which make up his 
world. If the grape—the Pomonal and Cereal fruits ripen 
for him, they ripen likewise for other creatures, which have 
as grateful a taste as he. Suns rise simply and light him, 
but rise to light him , violates all his proportions. 

According to the law of reciprocal dependence, the uni¬ 
versal law of the equality of action and reaction, the quan¬ 
tity of matter the earth contains, must bear certain relations 
with the amount of organic existences she nourishes. Man, 
like the other parts of the living series, enjoys his share of 
her good, and her evil; and like them, is connected with the 
heliarchy or our system of matter, by the universal laws 
which govern all. It is through these laws alone he can lay 
claim to the privileges of the sun and other stars, or upon 
them, all his use and enjoyment are founded. So far indeed 
from being wholly devoted to the good and comfort of our 
lives, may they not have other lives of their own, which it 
is their special, primary province to cherish ? 

LIFE UNIVERSAL. 

The same phenomena, conditions, belong to all the planets 
of our system. They all move in the same order round the 
sun; turn alike on their axes with their satellites to warm 
their entire surfaces at his great fire—fire which counteracts 
the cold, which must be prodigious, and universal through¬ 
out nature. If the earth is enveloped with a vivifying at- 


208 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


mosphere, seas roll on her surface, the tendency of discovery 
is, that they all have the same atmospheres, the same seas. 
The same laws co-ordinate and sustain all in the same move¬ 
ment, the same things appertain to all constituting the idea 
of system. 

If the great laws of motion are identical in each, so are the 
local or molecular attractions. Different philosophers, at 
distant places, have seen the same volcanic flashes of the 
lunar mountains. It must be the same would be visible in 
all but for their distance. I have already mentioned the 
corpuscular repulsion of day-light from the sun and stars. 
Like the earth, all the planets and their satellites reflect the 
solar light without the heat. Their molecular attractions 

O 

must be the same as the earth’s. In space, therefore, they 
are chemically and mechanically the same with her. They 
all, like her, have the same prelusory conditions indispensa¬ 
ble to vegetality, animality—all that is cosmically necessary 
for animation. 

The earth has life—offspring of a separate force of local 
molecular attraction, which causes organization. They, too, 
since they possess every thing prelusory for the development, 
and of a piece with it, must have this force, although it can¬ 
not manifest itself to us by its acts, at such great distances, 
like the force of the chemical attractions in the lunar, vol¬ 
canic eruptions, the reflection by the planets of the solar light 
simply, et cet. If the other planets, since they possess all 
the other attractions, the attractions wdiich nourish, make 
life possible—all the preparations, provisions visible to our 
reason—have not this local force of vital attraction, no life, 
what an anomaly , what a hiatus of nature! To what end 
does the sameness of the conditions of all, do these provisions, 
look? If vitality is one mode of productiveness, what is the 
volume of the earth by the side of all her fellow stars, not to 
say, by the side of all the bodies in space ? Her life is a 
part in her creation, it must be a part in them, since the 
same conditions exist in them which make it proper for her, 
and by which she supports it. 

Besides, the moral of things indicates this life. The evo- 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


209 


lution and maintenance of intelligence in nature, manifestly 
depend solely upon this local, vital attraction of matter. Intel¬ 
ligence, a form of being assimilated to the Divinity—an en¬ 
ergetic, physical force, which reacts immediately upon Him; 
examines to some extent, his labors; knows his will; offers 
him homage; follows after Him; plays eternally in the at¬ 
traction of which he is the centre.—Intelligence, for whose 
good here , Heaven has labored, so much revelation been 
given to guide and strengthen its action enfeebled by sin, 
but elsewhere, may pour its rays of love freely on this un¬ 
clouded centre. The rays which cover the heavenly spheres, 
can not be their true beauty and glory, but these rays of love, 
invisible to our organic senses, seen only in reason, which 
they shed, as the temples of the living doing homage. 

Since, in the great dynamical order, intelligence or mind 
is subordinate to the vital attraction of matter, and this at¬ 
traction is sustained by other material movements, intelli¬ 
gence is the mature, mellow fruit of our world, one of its 
great ends achieved, one of the ends of all its attractions and 
arrangements. The other planets participate in the same 
attractions and arrangements; the matter of their surfaces too 
must organize; they must be supplied with life and thought, 
be vocal in the hymn of universal praise. And since the 
sun, with all his planets, manifestly has a motion toward the 
constellation of Hercules, it is in the highest degree probable, 
that the same dynamical order holds throughout; and that 
organic, intellectual life is coextensive with the existence of 
matter in space. 

If the great moral of things points to this life, point not 
less certainly to it the perceptible order of facts, the habits, 
conduct of nature. She is always simple in her first efforts, 
operations; but as she advances, she combines, widens in 
her action, and spares her means. She builds the thought 
of Laplace out of the same material as the zoophyte. 
But in getting from the simple structure and sensibility of 
the zoophyte to him, through how many forms of organiza¬ 
tion, through how many shades of growing thought does she 
pass ? The action of the sensibility of the one puts it only 
18 


210 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


in alimentary relation with the spot, where it subsists, the 
sensitive action of the other expands throughout the uni¬ 
verse. If she spares her means, she lavishes in their pro¬ 
duction, her effects always complicated, voluminous, bearing 
no proportion to the causes employed. The most rigid, 
exact uniformity characterizes all her labors. So that could 
a creature with a pulmonary structure descend from Jupiter, 
it would testify moVe for the existence of his atmosphere, 
than all the lights of science ; it would be proof. 

Matter, in the hands of nature, is the first principle of all 
life, matter animated with motion simply, is its three-fourths. 
This motion combining with another from a new source, is 
life itself, the voluminous, complicated effect from the simple 
means. How diversified, how numerous its phenomena; 
how great the distance passed over at once by the aid of a 
single material—the distance between matter crystallizing, 
playing in its own attractions, and matter organizing through 
limited durations, organizing into definite forms in the same 
body to achieve definite ends or new enterprizes designated 
by vegetality, animality; other schedular, embryotic bodies 
emanating from them, to pass through the same durations. 
But nature here is not yet exhausted in production from the 
same means. She advances on with this action, simple at 
first in matter, but now complicated in life, makes another 
step, unites with it a new action from another new source. 
This modification or motion thus complicated is operative 
mind; the action widened , the effect augmented from the 
fewest number of means. The number of words in civil¬ 
ized languages sufficiently shows the vastness and diversity 
of its phenomena, and the distance at which it is removed 
from other beings. 

We see in all the planets these first motions, which pro¬ 
gressed, become life, and ultimately, intelligence. Nature 
in all is the same; she could not in them have fallen short 
in productiveness; abandoned her plans, the characteristic 
uniformity of her labors. Her moral, the order of her facts, 
her visible operations, proclaim the universality of organic 
life and intelligence. 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


211 


In the infancy of geography, nations seated upon some 
archipelago, considered their bit of country, as the only in¬ 
habitable region of the earth. So it may be, in the infancy 
of our philosophy, we look on the sphere of matter, where 
our lives have been cast, as the only realm of social life and 
pleasure; and, not knowing, never dream, that other mortals, 
in the countries of other stars, are pressing forward in the 
discovery of the laws of the same nature, advancing in the 
arts, which procure elegance and pleasure, and passing 
through spaces of existence, measured out to them by the 
motion of those stars .* 

The molecular attraction of life we see, is extremely sen¬ 
sitive to the action and influence of external or local causes. 
It is connected in direct dependence with the solar effusion. 
It varies or modifies as this effusion is modified by the figure 
of the earth and its airy involucrum. The earth is but a speck 
in space; how short is the arc of one of its meridians ; yet 
how does organization vary to fill up this arc? Plants are 
indigenous; animals, native in climates. There is rigidly 
an arctic and a tropical phytography, zoography, the ex¬ 
tremes, with all the shades which unite and fill ud between. 
The isothermal lines sweep through, and divide, almost 
upon the same spot, the different, living orders. How 
tightly does nature draw the cinctures of space as well as 
those of time, about these her living orders? 

And it is allowable, had the earth been twice her volume, 
twice the number of these orders had been required to fill 
up her climates. Jupiter, all the larger planets, therefore, 
if our speculations here conduct us right, and the analogy 
of nature is to be taken for guide, nourish a greater diversity 
of life, proportional to their magnitudes and climatiferous 

* Fontenelle, with the reason of fancy, has described, with accuracy 
enough, the customs, manners, personal appearance of some of these astroi - 
ketoi. The nymphs of the star that cheers our night, we are to suppose, 
excel in fairness all those, that have been seen by the Muse of Anacreon, or 
blushed or wept in the fancies of Boileau and Racine. One of our lovers 
might forget the disquietudes of the saucia conle , which terrestrial beauty 
inflicts, on beholding them.—(Vid. Plurality of Worlds.) 


212 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


conditions. Since the fire of the sun darts round him into 
the depths of space in straight lines, this fire must become 
sparse or more feeble as these depths increase. According 
to calculation, the temperate climates of Jupiter must corre¬ 
spond to those, which border on our arctic circle. Our Es¬ 
quimaux, all those nations which inhabit Boreal Europe and 
Asia, all other things corresponding, would find in these 
climates a comfortable abode. We may suppose a gradation 
of climates from Mercury to the star of Herschel, varying 
upon an irregular scale, according to the inclination of the 
planetary axes, and constitutions of their atmospheres, de¬ 
manding of the great, living force, new efforts, new organs 
for new functions, for new living forms, to accommodate the 
varying conditions of matter. While the laws of nature 
demand the most rigid, inflexible fixedness in these condi¬ 
tions, we see our great life everywhere plastic, everywhere 
bending to the all-powerful influence of these conditions. 
This vital plasticity is a law of nature; it must reign her 
resource throughout her empire. 

But the vital attraction elaborates its own fire, and shows 
itself independent, in certain limits, of the action of all ex¬ 
ternal ignific and frigorific causes. All organic existences 
have a temperature essentially their own, which nowhere 
corresponds to the media, in which they are immersed; yet, 
as intimated, it must be conceded, the solar fire regulates the 
intensity or the rates of the great, living action, as the fe¬ 
cundity, gigantic size, the vast abundance of the living 
forms of temperate climates, contrasted with those of the 
polar regions, sufficiently testify. If we conceive the living 
power of generating heat to increase to the extremities of 
our system, in the same ratio, that the solar warmth dimi¬ 
nishes, vital, organic bodies of the Georgium Sidus, star of 
Herschel, may enjoy the same temperature as those of the 
earth. And if we conceive further, a still greater dispropor- 
tional augmentation of the heat secreting functions to be 
compatible with living races, and progressed to this star; 
and the material forces, which war against the vital attrac¬ 
tion, to grow weaker, as does the sun’s force, of which pre- 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


213 


sently, then the Herschelian lives may possess a warmth 
exalted prodigiously above that of any of ours. 

Under such an arrangement, law of nature, this star, which 
our clouded, unlettered fancy presents to us so unfavorably 
situated, so far as the great want of heat is concerned, may 
be the abode, the Paradise unruined , where the beautiful, 
noble descendants of another Eve, with a category of subor¬ 
dinate lives, have passed through infinite generations, amid 
naught but boundless ease and pleasure. Their bodies thus 
animated, with those of other creatures, in the decayed, ex¬ 
piring fire of the sun, would melt and dissipate the ice, 
which otherwise would eternally fetter their world; excite 
in it the movement of the Ausonian breeze; impart genial 
warmth to the earth and atmosphere; and ripen the Hespe¬ 
rian fruits, with which they are nourished. These fruits 
would perpetually ripen, since the summer, in which they 
opened their flowers, would be perpetual, emanating from 
the same unvarying source of living fire. 

New forms, new combinations of existence would present 
to science new routes, and unveil thought in an infinity of 
novel and beautiful shapes. The scene of reality, of imagi¬ 
nation would be not less boundless; the song of the Muse 
not inferior in sweetness, grandeur and elevation, to that of 
our earth-worn harps. It is, therefore, not without some 
reason, that the spirit of our poetry and romance delights to 
soar to these worlds to catch the breath of a fresh life. 

If we conceive the organic orders of Herschel to permit 
their circulatory and pulmonary systems to be greatly de¬ 
veloped above those of our lives, and their atmosphere to 
be charged with a greater proportion of oxygen, this living 
fire so operative would be evolved, and exist in them in the 
same manner, and by the same laws, as in ours. An increase 
in the organic and physical means of the vital fire propor¬ 
tionally to the distances of the planets from the sun, other 
conditions being the same with the earth, would constitute 
them all equally inhabitable with it. 

And if the solar flame regulates the rates of vital attrac¬ 
tion, it is extremely probable, it regulates likewise those of 


214 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


the chemical activities, that these activities diminish from 
the centre to the extremities of the system. The universal 
weight—forces weaken to these extremities. We know not 
their proportions with the local attractions, but it is highly 
probable, as I say, the latter weaken in the same manner; 
and that matter, in all its energies, grows universally more 
sluggish, as the distance recedes from the sun. The increas- 

OO 7 

ing porosity of the planets favors this view. 

The molecules of all bodies, we know, attract one another 
with a definite force. The vital attraction has to overcome 
this force; it is therefore a dead weight it carries in forming 
the living tissues. But if it be a law of nature, which it 
appears to be, that the molecular attractions or this dead 
weight diminishes to the last planet of our system, in the 
same proportion, every thing equal, the vital attraction 
unchanged—and since immechanical, we see no reason for 
change—would increase in activity to this planet. But the 
sun stimulates, regulates its energy. If, therefore, from the 
loss of his influence, it weakens on the face of the planets, 
as they recede from him, it gains strength proportionally 
by the diminution of the opposing attractions; and may be 
regarded everywhere as of equable fulness. 

By modifying the organic laws to accommodate the dif¬ 
ferent conditions of matter, as it exists in all systems, we 
may think nature has supplied all with life. What a va¬ 
riety of modifications has been necessary to accommodate 
our planet! What infinity of organizations with special, 
vital properties, functions, to supply suns, comets! Man 
cannot alone feel, think, philosophize, and die. Myriads on 
myriads of beings must participate in the shades of his form 
and thought; immensity, on both sides of him, peopled. 

The revolutions of the stars proclaim, demonstrate death 
for all. Life, ages fly aw^ay in proportion to their velocities; 
new ages come; a thousand centuries of centuries, a moment, 
but the same mature old age, counted where they correspond. 
There is an universe of life and intelligence, as well as of 
matter, advancing in rapid haste to an eternally receding 
futurity. This universe has but one great motion. If the 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


215 


affections and the thought of man terrestrial do not answer 
complexion with the affections and thought of man in Sa¬ 
turn, or some star, they must answer, and be united at some 
other point; and the stream of his life, flow into the same 
great ocean. 

Davy,* philosophically dreaming, conceived of organic 
intelligences, resembling somewhat our proboscindiana , en¬ 
dowed with superior philosophical powers soaring above the 
amber clouds. Infinitely beyond these clouds, and the 
sphere on which they cast their shadows, in her intellectual 
municipalities, who can tell, in what shapes nature may 
mould the feeling heart, and the sublime power of investi¬ 
gating thought? The dreams of philosophers, the airy 
forms of imagination, could her labors be explored, with 
slight alterations, might become her realities. 

How long, how varied is our living chain?—How diminu¬ 
tive the earth to necessitate such diversity to accommodate 
the varying conditions of her matter! Man only in our day 
begins to look upon the great scene of the life she nourishes. 
He contemplates it with wonder; begins to behold it in the 
great mirror of time; roll aw T ay the night of years, that has 
fallen upon it; and gather up all the scattered lights and 
shades, which form its mighty picture. New Holland, more 
recently perhaps than some other countries from the bosom of 
Neptune, presents new organic types, which have demanded 
a separate place in the nomenclature of natural history. The 
living forms of the Eocene and Miocene periods, look to land 
and water or their mixture; are stamped with the seal of 
chaos. The lives of New Holland, in distant, future annals, 
may contrast as greatly in shape with them, that occupy, at 
present, her surface, as do now the lives of other countries, 
with those of their own kindred, on vrhich the light of Au¬ 
rora first shone. 

If, therefore, New Holland presents new species; if such 
enormous diversities and changes in the organic types are 
necessitated to accommodate the varied, varying states of 
our terrestrial matter, what diversity, what changes—how 

* Consolations in Travel, p. 64. 


216 


LIFE UNIVERSAL. 


much must these types diverge from ours, and from one 
another—on the face of all the planets. And, to accommo¬ 
date such immense masses of matter, as the sun and fixed 
stars, many of which visible to us, may have shone myriads 
of ages before the flight of our spheres commenced, what 
still infinitely greater varieties, decays, renovations, revolu¬ 
tions, of vital morphogeny ? 

We look upon the universe, as a given, unvarying quan¬ 
tity; a fixed and finished form. Where is the Force, which 
anciently upheaved it from nothing? Has It become drowsy 
—fallen into profound slumbers, from which It never wakes ? 
Can we conceive Omnipotency at repose? Must not the 
cause which produced worlds, at first, still tend to their pro¬ 
duction ? Have the skies not their veritable antiquities—the 
proportions of new and old ? Ho not young stars blend their 
raj^s with those that shone before our chaos? In the age of 
ages is there not a progressive order of changes? Stars 
appear and disappear. The star discovered in Cassiope in 
1572 by Tycho-Brahe, shone with great brilliancy for a 
short time, and since has been lost in the depths of space. 
Philosophers discover alterations occur; new scenes, vicissi¬ 
tudes take place in the great field of space. Laplace* pro¬ 
claims that new events are transpiring in nature, and that 
she is not always the same. Cuvier, with the most admira¬ 
ble sagacity, has demonstrated, that there has been a succes¬ 
sion of lives upon the earth; that the ancient organic forms 
have perished: and life on her actual face exists in new 
shapes. The divine sages teach us great, future revolutions 
of the world. The telescope of Herschel revealed, the pow¬ 
erful telescopes reveal in the profound depths of celestial 
space, floating clouds of matter—new chaos. Some portions 
of these clouds or nebulosities appear more condensed than 
others, presenting nuclei. These nuclei, in the progress of 
time, appear to become more luminous. Human reason 
looks on those clouds as points, where creation is still pro¬ 
gressing; these nuclei, as nascent orbs of future light— 
material existence beginning, begun with the feeble move- 

* Syst. du Monde, p. 392, supra citato. 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


217 


ment, which, in its expansion and fulness,—will stamp on life 
the appropriate forms of organization, on mind the suitable 
sensation and thought; and, in the age of ages, in the great 
revolution, be what kindred stars and systems are and have 
been. 


CHAPTER IV. 

PHILOSOPHY—NATURE—OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 

In the preceding chapter, we have been compelled to an¬ 
ticipate many of the generalities of the philosophy of anima¬ 
tion. We have seen that the sun exercises the most despotic 
power over all vital morphogeny; that the organic acts or 
functions are more complicated in origin than the acts of 
an organic matter; the intensity of these functions quadrates 
with the intensity of the chemic and cosmic forces; that the 
living forms are every where modified to accommodate the 
varying conditions of matter; and that these forms are not 
only co-ordinated in their own system, but sustain the most 
strict and rigid relations with the great order of the material 
•universe. 

Thus the farther we advance in the study of natural 
beings—the nearer we approach the great interior of nature’s 
household—in proportion the more complicated become their 
properties and phenomena; and, in the same proportion, they 
recede from our research. Finally they vanish away from 
us, and hide in the dark shadow of their first creation. In 
our advance the forms of beings we meet with are new, but 
not all the materials. The old materials are brought for¬ 
ward, new ones with new forces to modify are added, which 
give new contours to fresh ranks of multiplying existence. 
Nature prodigal lavishes existence, but in so doing loses 
nothing. Whatever power she expends, whatever she 
moulds into form, she gathers up, and carries onward with 



213 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


her to be employed in the fresh operations and enterprises 
of her creative art. 

Thus, in the chemic atoms, we behold forces for the pro¬ 
duction of the corporeal forms, the consuming of space, the 
preserving of distinctness, for their impulsion through end¬ 
less changes—all that is necessary for their own economy. 
Life is a movement in which they play a part so conspicu¬ 
ous, that its idea is inseparable from them. They stimulate 
primarily to all intellection. So far we can trace the se¬ 
quences of these forces. But here they abandon us; we 
can keep up no longer; they vanish away to be active in 
the great order which regulates all material efforts. Their 
course is still onward, although we cannot trace it, for our 
reason assures us the action of nature is but one. 

Now here, in living bodies, we meet again these same 
atoms. Plants and animals differ so much from mere mine¬ 
ral masses, that had we not been apprised, we might expect 
to meet in them every thing new. But nature, as I have 
said, gathers up the old materials she had used in one form 
of being, and carries them forward to be employed in the 
new. It is the same atoms, but here, in this new form of 
animated existence, they have changed the order of com¬ 
bination. They no longer form homogeneous masses; evolve 
their binary compounds; and crystallize in angular shapes, 
fitted merely for juxtaposition or stratification. Their man¬ 
ner of union is now only tertiary or quaternary; and, the 
forms altogether different, endowed with new properties, are 
adapted to new impulsions, influences, the sphere of activity 
altered and infinitely widened. 

How rapidly do the mineral and animated forms diverge! 
The one looks merely to stratification, a place to rest snugly 
in—its essence repose; the other, to impetuous worlds for 
excitement, to which the face of its organs are set, death the 
only quiet. But notwithstanding this divergence, and pro¬ 
digious augmentation of capacity of the living forms, and 
of their relationship, all is not remodeled, changed. The 
atoms still exert several of their old forces, the same as in 
the mineral state. Vital bodies occupy space, gravitate to 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


219 


the earth’s centre; some of the tissues exercise elasticity, 
and all are porous. They enjoy too aggregative attraction, 
but the manner is altered. 

The angularity of mineral bodies adapts them to cubic or 
solid extension; all their motions are mechanical or attrac¬ 
tive; their life, I may say, is simply geometrical. Each 
component part is active, instrumental in producing motion. 
The motions of organized bodies, contrarily, do not arise 
from all their parts, but from a solitary, innate principle, 
excitable by all the other bodies of nature, and by thought 
in volition. Except in the bones of animals, the mere ful¬ 
cra of support, all the motions are perfectly immechanical, 
and the life, ungeometrical. They both, I say, enjoy im¬ 
penetrability, extension, porosity, gravitate to the earth’s 
centre, et cet. Whence, then, comes this divergence in the 
two sorts of bodies?—the plenary mode of combination, and 
uniform homogeneity of substance in the one; the assump¬ 
tion of the tertiary or quaternary mode only, and hetero¬ 
geneity in the other; in the one, the monotonous angularity 
of figure looking to snug location, and the sources of move¬ 
ments, mechanical impulse and the varied attractions; in 
the other, the variation of figure through the zoological 
series, each separate part of an individual existing in func¬ 
tional relation to the whole, and the source of movements, 
not attractions, but an unique power, common to all living, 
but foreign to all mineral bodies? But whence comes this 
divergence, the difference between the two? The same 
causes operating, cceteris paribus, must always produce the 
same sequences. Here the sequences vary, the causes have 
varied; the sequences are not all changed, the causes have 
only changed in part. A new cause, therefore, has been 
superadded, which produces the new modifications in the 
original properties and phenomena of bodies manifest in the 
living forms. And plants and animals are something more 
than the mere modes of material existence. 

Abstract power or force is inconceivable; this new modi¬ 
fying cause is substantive , upon which we have already 
insisted. All that we know of its nature is, that it is the 


220 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


great functionary of all life, the evolution and conservation 
of all its forms being due to its operations. Heu quantum 
nescimus! What are all living things—their properties, 
qualities, and phenomena—but a combination of effects of 
anterior causes known and unknown—the mutations, meta¬ 
morphoses of what was, progressing new modelled?—Mere 
existences beheld at one stage of their progress, visible only 
in one speck of time! Contemplate the ovum of the Dip - 
ter a , a minute atom; now it is a moist, disgusting worm, but 
now it mounts the breeze, and its wings flutter in a glory of 
light and shadow, which would immortalize the second time 
the pencil of a Rubens or Vandyck. Meditate the semi-pel¬ 
lucid drop, in wdiich man enjoys his first existence. Now 
this drop is a squalling infant; now ambition inflames its 
heart; the noise of fame astounds its ears; glory dazzles its 
eyes; nature soothes it with her sweet inspirations; now it 
presses hard up the steep of knowledge, or with burning 
numbers fashions immortal song labouring for the remem- 
brance of posterity; or with sinewy arm seizes the sword; 
scours the field of war; snatches victory in the tempest of 
blood; now it is a putrescent mass noiseless except in the 
expiring echo of fame; and now, if it have kept its true 
course, in its last metamorphosis, it will open its eyes to the 
insufferable splendors of its Divine Creator. 

But this drop had only been food, that nourished the 
mother w T hich had nourished indiscriminately the hungry 
millions before. How many distinct things make up man’s 
totality, the sum of any animated being ! Such existences, 
in the actual order of nature, are mere stages of beino*. of 
which we are permitted to see only some of the phases, their 
entire philosophy soaring infinitely beyond our resources. 

SECTION I. 

ANALYSIS OF THE LIVING FUNCTIONS-FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF 

PHYSIOLOGY. 

Philosophers observe that causes behind us narrow up 
rapidly, while before, they expand to infinity. A few sim- 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


221 


pie facts, principles, or causes, therefore, furnish the bases 
of all our sciences, so that knowledge always builds on the 
side next futurity. Thus gravity is the x of the unknown 
quantity, on which astronomy founds herself, and solves the 
problem of the celestial phenomena. Chemistry refers the 
constitution of bodies, changes of their form—all her truths 
—to the molecular attractions unknowable in themselves. 
The great fabric of geometry rests upon a small number of 
facts. 

In imitation of these sciences, since Glisson, physiology 
has laboured assiduously to fix upon the first, irreducible 
truth, the x of the vital functions, out of which all the other 
truths naturally flow. But physiologists looking for the 
footsteps of nature so near the border of absolute darkness, 
have not agreed in what is presented to observation. Besides 
false facts and false experience, of which philosophers of all 
ages have justly complained, come to torment truth, and 
retard the progress of expanding light. Systems built upon 
such facts and experience in this science as in others, pos¬ 
terity continually labors to demolish, and lay the founda¬ 
tions on new bases; so that history presents the horizon of 
letters full of gloomy antiquities, mouldering ruins “ nodding 
to their fall” reared up by former ages, to become even but 
slightly acquainted with which constitutes no small amount 
of scholarship. 

In consequence of such facts and experience, and the 
difficulty of seizing upon the true facts of nature, in their 
generalizations, some physiologists admit one, some two, 
and others three or more of these primitive, irreducible 
principles as the basis of the science; or as the last terms to 
which the vital phenomena can be reduced. Contractility 
and sensibility, irritability , motivity , excitability , nervimo- 
tility , and a host of similar cognomical expressions, many of 
which, as Bostock justly remarks, are merely expressive of 
theoretical views of authors, are received in the actual epoch 
as these terms. The difference of faith among great authors, 
is the strongest evidence, that these terms are not yet settled; 
and that the true analysis of the living functions, and the 
19 


222 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


first uninvestigable fact or energy of nature upon which they 
rest, in the fortunes of progressive knowledge, await the 
researches of posterity. 

These expressions designate the properties of living bodies, 
either as existing in themselves, or in relation to the ambient 
media. Contractility , ultimately from contrahere , to draw 
together, expresses only a peculiar mode of motion. This 
sort of motion is very manifest in the action of the masses 
of the muscles; hut are generation, the motions of the nerves 
in sensation, the motions of the parenchyma of the organs or 
capillary system in ultimate assimilation and disassimilation 
of the repairing materials, of pulmonary hsematosis, et cet., 
by contraction ? Certainly these motions are any thing other 
than contractions; and the greatest probability is, in the 
actual lights, that they are all by polaration, a type of move¬ 
ment abundant in nature. Since there is a constant intro¬ 
mission of foreign matters in all the organs, or since the or¬ 
ganizing act continues without intermiting from conception 
till death, and the living body is composed of solids and fluids, 
the former of which momently expand, and contract to 
receive and expel the latter, expansion is a type of motion 
nature amply employs in the living organism; and, if con¬ 
tractility has claims to be a parent force of the functional 
phenomena, expansibility must likewise have claims. Con¬ 
tractility, therefore, which indicates all living actions to be 
by contraction, does not cover all the ground its inventors 
intended it to occupy, tends to mislead the understanding, 
and is an incompetent, infelicitous expression of a last term 
to which the vital phenomena can be reduced. 

Irritability , excitability , stimulability —according to the 
construction of our language—mean, by their terminal syl¬ 
lables, abstract power , power in repose; relate to the ambient 
media, and imply that the living motions, whether in the 
interior or exterior of the body, arise or are communicated 
from agents foreign to the achieving organs. This mechan¬ 
ism of motion so abundant, reigns manifestly in the living 
economy. But are we prepared to say the acts which shape 
the organs,—evolve the embryon—immediately waste in 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


223 


atrophy—all the living acts , are true stimulations l This 
action by stimuli is peculiar to organized bodies, strongly 
marks a distinction, as I have already had occasion to notice 
between them and all the other beings of nature, but is not 
the universal type of vital activity. The same objections, 
consequently, just urged against contractility, apply with 
equal force against all these terms. 

Upon such views of the first facts of living phenomena, 
physiologists have predicated definitions of life. Brown and 
Rush considered it as the effect of stimuli acting upon ex¬ 
citability. In the vital acts, which elaborate phosphoric 
acid and lime; the attraction, which unites them into bone ; 
in the combination of the nutritive molecules from the com¬ 
mon torrent of the circulation into the various organic tissues, 
we see, as already intimated, no traces, either of stimuli or 
excitability; and that life must be something more than the 
effect of such action. MM. Bichat and Beclard avoided 
this Brownian error. “ The totality of the functions which 
resist death,” the former regarded, as being life ; with the 
latter, it is the whole of the phenomena peculiar to organ¬ 
ized beings. M. de Blainville very justly remarks there are 
almost as many definitions of life as there are systems of 
physiology. 

Broussais, to whose researches future men must do homage, 
looked upon sensibility as a function ; and made contractility 
and a living power of molecular combination the last terms, 
to which the phenomena of life can be reduced. With him 
and his numerous imitators, the vital or organizing force, 
which creates and co-ordinates the organs, is the first cause. 
Contractility is the only property of these organs evidenced 
to our senses—the second or immediate cause of the functions. 
Such is Broussais. 

Since contractility and sensibility are inseparably seated 
together in the organs, and perfectly synchronous in their 
action, it is inconceivable how it can be determined, which 
is the property , which the function of the other, or that any 
such relation holds between them. In this respect, it ap¬ 
pears to us, the subject is precisely in the same predicament 


224 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


as the question between the British and Chinese philosophers 
mentioned by us before, whether it be the North or South , 
which attracts its respective pole of the magnetic needle. 

Sensibility is the first material, organic condition, cause of 
all the intellectual phenomena, whose modes of activity MM. 
Condillac and Destutt-Tracy erected into the faculties of the 
mind. It constitutes the sole union between the mind and 
the living organism, and co-ordinates the material, and imma¬ 
terial of us into one movement. If it is obvious to our senses, 
and we are conscious the mind acts in sensation at the mo 
ment the living substance of the organs is contracting, Pro¬ 
fessor Tiedemann, in a late work,* has shown, that the in¬ 
tellectual phenomena are modified or are subordinate to the 
molecular movement of these organs, or to nutrition. We 
cannot, I think, confound the condensation or contraction of 
the living substance with the movements of its chemifactions, 
or molecular composition and decomposition. Nature, then, 
has not limited the dynamical mind to the contractions of 
the organs as the sole condition. We see its phenomena 
modify w T ith all abnormal changes or diseases. Conse¬ 
quently it puts forth its efforts not only upon the contractions 
of the living substance but upon all the changes, through 
which it organically passes. If sensibility, therefore, be a 
function of contractility, it must likewise be a function of 
the cause of all these changes. 

Organic contraction is only one state or condition, in which 
sensibility is put in evidence. There are other conditions, 
as just shown, of the living substance in which it manifests 
its action. Can we connect contractility and sensibility in 
the relation of property and function, or of cause and effect, 
without combining other, even many causes for the produc¬ 
tion of the same single effect ? 

The too severe habit of abstraction, and rigid logic of 
Prof. Broussais, revealed nature to him here in this light. 
His mind drawing nutrition from itself, original, he felt little 
the authority of others. His reason created the ground over 
which he passed, gave to things new T shapes, altered here 

* Physiologie Compare. 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


225 


what was right, hut righted much of what had been wrong 
before. Had his originality allowed him to feel more of the 
force of the venerable code of philosophical reasoning care¬ 
fully drawn up and observed by Pinel in the composition of 
the Nosographie philosophique , which he so severely criti¬ 
cised, and justly censured,* he had probably given to this 
subject a different development. 

It is only the plastic power of language, the mutations it 
offers to things, displacing their proper shapes, which trans¬ 
form and make sensibility into a function:—sensibility a 
primary property or law of the living organism, through 
which all its stimulations come—sensibility nature’s provi¬ 
sion for these stimulations. The order of facts, of which it 
is one of the ideas, proclaims and constitutes it a property. 
Sensations are not supposed to exist natively in the organs, 
but are referred to a cause existing in the organs, which 
generates them on the impulse or contact of foreign bodies. 
They are the effects of this cause or of sensibility, as the 
contractions are of contractility. 

The human understanding, I may remark here, appears 
so fashioned, as of necessity, in contemplating the combined, 
the great continued action of nature, to always distinguish 
between the anterior and the posterior , so that the first or 
antecedent action, in the order of time, is the cause of which 
the second action or sequent is the effect. Thus the mind 
through the senses is conscious of sensations and contractions 

o 

in the organs, but that which causes these two sorts of acts 
is not manifested to it like the acts themselves. Since the 
acts exist in the organs, it infers their unperceived causes 
likewise to be present in them, or to be their properties, dis¬ 
tinguishes between the anterior and posterior of time, refers 
these acts to these properties, connecting them in the relation 
of cause and effect, and frames words for them, sensibility 
and contractility , suitably to express such relation. 

It is upon such manner of seeing and distinguishing, the 
mind has framed all language. A heavy body, for instance, 
falls to the ground—the falling act is felt by the senses, but 

* i n his Examen des doctrines medicales, tome iv., p. 1. et sequente. 

19* 


2-26 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


what falls in the body is unfelt. The mind associates the 
sensible falling act with the dark, invisible faller or gravity, 
in the order of antecedence and sequence. In like manner, 
for the same reason, since water boils and freezes, were it 
not plain these two acts depend upon the varying amount of 
heat this fluid may contain, they would be supposed to arise 
from some property or properties in it; and w T e should find, 
in all enlightened languages, words to express a boiling and 
freezing quiddity in water. It is clear, could the conditions 
under wdiich the organism and all anorganic natures mani¬ 
fest activity, become obvious to the senses, as are those of 
these two acts of water, a great revolution w 7 ould take place 
in the vocabulary of physiology and general physics. 

But that such manner of formation strictly holds, is proven 
by the paucity of words in all barbarous tongues expressive 
chiefly of simple sensations. How strongly does the same 
language of any people become civilized, contrast with itself 
before and after the change? When letters, for example, 
began to acquire glory in Greece, and men pushed their 
contemplations farther out into nature, words generated with 
the rapidity of expanding thought. These new words ex¬ 
pressed the recondite, hidden nature of things, connected 
the visible with the invisible; their language became im¬ 
mortal, and its words still live in all the scientific languages 
of the world. 

The mind follows after nature in the inverted order of her 
movement, discovers new relations, and needs new words to 
express them, which it promptly invents. Soon it forgets 
their true meanings, and erects these relations or properties 
of things, which are only the ways in which it sees , into beings. 
Thus, in the mutations of languages, as I have said, sensi¬ 
bility becomes a function, or a property; in these mutations, 
untrue to the natural order, sensibility, contractility, gravity, 
et cet., become clothed w T ith being, or misplaced in the 
order of nature’s great continued action: And thus, man 
thinking in the ever-moving, fleeting duration of time, from 
the point of view at which he sees, drinks in the darkness 
with the light. And, although, in erecting his science, he 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


227 


may be conscious that the vital properties are nothing dis¬ 
tinct from the organs, hut merely the organs themselves 
contracting, feeling,—that gravity, all the attractions of a 
body, are simply that body itself moving in various man¬ 
ners:—that the properties of all physical existences, in a 
word, are neatly nothing hut these existences developing their 
actions in different ways, yet it is highly probable, however 
fortunate and happy he may be in futurity, he will never 
be able to invent a higher logic, and expel all such words 
from the vocabulary of his reason. They appear, since they 
figure in the history of his language, useful conveniences, 
and indispensable to him, from the point of view, at which 
he can only behold nature. 

Nervimotility. Since, in the last ramifications of the ner¬ 
vous fibrilli, it is not improbable the nervous substance may 
be diffused through all the living molecules of the body; 
and since it is pretty well agreed that all vital movements 
are concerned with, or begin in this substance, nervimotility , 
first formally introduced into medicine, I believe, by Dutro- 
cliet, is the least exceptionable, as a name for the unknown 
cause of life. Whether this substance be diffused through 
all the molecules or not, sensibility in some form exists in 
all the living parts, in some even where no nerves can be 
traced by dissection, which Humboldt and other experi¬ 
mental physiologists accounted for, by supposing the nerves 
darted their influence to some distance around beyond their 
terminal extremities. 

We are in absolute ignorance as respects the nature of 
the nervous action, and the extent, which, however, we 
know to be very great. The titles, consequently, of nervimo¬ 
tility to the higher rank, to which it has been elevated, are 
doubtful. 

We cannot recognize, identify the living opifex. It is 
transmitted in the generating act, operates in the fibrous 
contractions, sensations, the nutritive molecular fluctuations 
of the living substance—in all the functions—suspends its 
action in death. The functions achieve organization; this 
is their end. It is before all the functions; contractility 


228 


NATURE OF ANIMATED BEINGS. 


and sensibility are only some of the known laws by which 
it manifests its efforts. It is a primary, energetic force of 
creation; moulds matter into an infinity of forms peculiar 
to themselves; and in their debris, leads in the revolutions 
of the face of our planet. With these forms self-combusti¬ 
ble deposited in the bottom of seas and lakes, amassed in 
the bowels of the earth, it feeds the volcanic fire. In the 
sequel of its reaction on the world, it is a fearful, revolu¬ 
tionary power. Observe the slow but constant changes the 
operations of vitality are pushing forward in the matter of 
the globe—formation of solid, calcareous rocks from decom¬ 
posed testacea and bones of animals, the gigantic, ponderous 
framework of mountains that are, and yet to be—produc¬ 
tion of new islands by lithific coral or madrepore action— 
changes, which constantly act, which have, which will 
ultimately act on the fortunes of future men, and alter the 
face of society with the face of the world. 

Its action by organization appears to place matter in a 
condition to pass through changes purely chemical, through 
which it could not, but for its intervention and agency. The 
genera] tendency is to the durable concretion of its molecules, 
to th ^hardening of the general mass of the earth, as is manifest 
in the coal, the ammonitic, lias and other similar formations, 
which constitute so large a portion of the terrestrial crust. 
It is in this manner it becomes a cause of alterations; and, 
but for it, it is reasonable the geological face of our world 
had worn a very different aspect from what it does. 

Is it by the great changes it produces in matter, it itself 
becomes changed in vast durations, and passes into types of 
organization altogether new ? And from such changes will 
the great annals of futurity present a zoological series of 
animated forms, which shall differ as greatly and decidedly 
from all that now live, and will become extinct, as these 
forms differ from the gigantic, winged mammalia, reptiles, 
amphibia,—the children of the first earth,—which horn re in 
actual oryctology? 

We cannot know or name* the cause of life; its chamber 

* Vid. Virey Puissance vitale passim, et quoque Adelon Physiologie de 
V homme, tom. iv., p. 569. 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


229 


is darkness. It is charged with the sacred ministry of af¬ 
fording life to the world; and like the forces of this world, 
with which it measures strength, continues on its action 
through interminable duration. 


CHAPTER V. 

* 

LIFE OR VITAL MOTION CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO TIME, OR 

THE MOVEMENT OF THE WORLD. 

Beings alone are nature’s actors, the sources of all cau¬ 
sation. The cause of life, which is truly motion, is one of 
these actors. The motions waste, but the movers, the 
frame-work of the world, persevere unwasted. Thus, since 
the origin, day after day has continued to plunge the gulf 
of night, age after age, that of the tomb, but days and ages 
are still on their eternal flight. 

Accordingly, it is in the duration of time itself unfolding, 
the great vital force or mover unfolds its action in the per¬ 
petual evolution of generations. It is this stupendous action 
we are here to place by the side of that of the world; and 
ascertain, as well as we can, their relative value or just pro¬ 
portions. Hei! veritcitem natures sequentes , speramus, tantos 
superare labores. And especially, when we consider, that 
our feet are planted on one speck of time, which measures 
at once our duration; that this speck is constantly dashing 
away with us, impelled by an ever-pouring torrent of similar 
specks; that if our world advances through such vast spaces 
per hour, we are whirled backward in the same proportion 
to the gulf of the tomb. A spectator carried but a mile per 
minute, we should think, before the most magnificent spec¬ 
tacle in the world, could be supposed to distinguish but very 
imperfectly the objects presented him. How then can we 
seize our proportions—behold ourselves in the great mirror 
of time! Yet how we love nature; delight to copy her great 



230 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


images in our mind; feel their warmth inspire affection in 
our heart; to be near her; walk on her shadowy grounds, 
where the faintest ray of twilight only falls on truth, the 
communication even of which, M. Bourdon* has placed 
among our real wants! O nature ! magna corpora , 

Anges, liomme, animaux, vastes meres, chaine immence, 

Qu’ un atome finit, que 1’ Eternal commence. 

The subject of this chapter naturally decomposes itself into 
three; 1. vital evolution; 2. death; 3. perpetuation by gene¬ 
ration. 


SECTION I. 

VITAL EVOLUTION. 

\ * * ? Hr - % >! 

Since life only progresses by organization, as the means, 
which is double, composition and decomposition, the manner 
of duration of the individual as of generations is by perpetual 
evolution. Decisive stages divide this duration of individual 
life into several distinct parts, ages, and unite them together, 
the continuity of existence going on through the changes 
unbroken. Thus he the same, who crawled after his toy on 
the floor, leaped up in the lap of his Corsican mother, leaped 
afterwards for empire; who wept for the loss of his plaything, 
did not weep for the blood, with which he deluged the earth, 
and the ocean of innocent tears he caused to be shed;—who 
trembled at the growl of the cat, his familiar playmate, waded 
through blood at Saragossa, shook with his noise the coun¬ 
try where Scipio and Hannibal had fought, pushed the crown 
off the heads of her sovereigns ; passed to Egypt, convulsed 
the earth under her pyramids, struck at the sceptre of her 
caliphs; coward eel death at Lodi and Austerlitz, and demo¬ 
lished the proud Kremlin of the cunning Russian.—So that 
the metamorphosis of the action, is not outdone by that of 
the organization. 

In all the more perfect races got beyond the uterine stage, 
or in man, according to M. Adelon, this evolution is achieved 

* Vid. Principes. 


% 


VITAL EVOLUTION. 


231 


by eleven distinct species of actions or functions:—1. sensa¬ 
tions ; 2. voluntary movements ; 3. expressions ; 4. digestion ; 
5. absorptions; 6. respiration; 7. circulation; 8. assimila¬ 
tions ; 9. calorifications; 10. secretions; 11. generation. 
These eleven sorts of acts, the immediate elements of vitality, 
conspire in their whole to nutrition and reproduction, or to 
the conservation of the life of the individual and the species; 
and relate to the same number of classes of organs which 
compose each individual of these races. They will group 
together into two or more orders, and refer to contractility, 
sensibility—the vital properties—of which they are esteemed 
the functions. To live, I have said, is to organize, to be 
nourished, which is to have internal sensations to solicit, 
perceptions to distinguish aliments; voluntary movements 
for their prehension; their digestion in a reservoir or appa¬ 
ratus ; their absorption; their transmission to the pulmonary 
organs for respiration; their circulation by the heart or dif¬ 
fusion into all parts of the body for use; their transmutation 
into these parts or assimilation; their rejection afterwards; 
the maintenance of temperature ; and finally, expressions for 
mutual co-operation, defence,—in our species, the right arm 
of civilization and exquisite source of pleasure. 

Since function, from fungi , means to discharge or fill an 
office, in a good classification, each ought to have a special 
organ or apparatus as its achieving instrument. We may, 
perhaps, justify the number mentioned here, since each 
enjoys an individuality in the economy the organs form. 
Some organs participate in or have several functions; as the 
tongue; some combine to form one, as digestion, vocal lan¬ 
guage ; while there appears no very distinct structure for the 
execution of other functions, as assimilation, calorification; 
the parenchyma, however, of all the organs must be regarded 
as their true seat and instruments. 

Physiologists make functions by the combining together 
or separating of functions. They manifest the same dis¬ 
sonance among themselves in this respect, as in the vital 
properties, hastily glanced at in the preceding chapter. Hal¬ 
ler, Viq-d’Azyr, Fourcroy, Chaussier, Barthez, Cuvier, Du- 


232 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


mas, Blumenbach, Bichat and others, under the various 
relations they may be considered, modified their number, 
their names, or both ; but the analysis of their enumerations 
presents nearly about equal values; so that either, placed to 
proper account, would be a pretty safe guide in the actual 
state of knowledge. Their number depends upon the num¬ 
ber of living properties admitted. Haller recognized but 
two of these, sensibility and irritability, to which he referred 
all living phenomena, and on which he built the functions 
of his system. Viq-d’Azyr, Fourcroy and Cuvier established 
each nine functions, but Cuvier’s are not the same as those 
of the two former. Chaussier, the venerable founder of 
vitalism in France, distinguished three fundamental proper¬ 
ties of the organism, sensibility, motility and caloricity ; and 
made eleven functions. Dumas recognized four of these 
properties, sensibility, motility, a force of assimilation, and 
of vital resistance, which he attributed to all living natures; 
and accordingly made out four classes of functions, accom¬ 
modated to the ideas he conceived of them. With M. de 
Bon aid, Buisson defined man, an intelligence ministered to 
by organs; and divided all the functions into two great 
classes—those which labor directly for his intelligence, 
and those for his material conservation. In the first class 
he grouped all the external senses, locomotion and the voice; 
and, in the second, those which combine to organic chemi- 
faction, which in their operation are explorative, preparatory 
and immediately nutritive; —a division and classification of 
the phenomena of man, he looked upon as being the most 
natural that could be made. 

By Ruiller only three radical properties, motility, impres¬ 
sionability and vital affinity , could be distinguished, as the 
causes of the functions, which he modified. Barfhez saw 
in the living economy five original forces as appertaining to 
all living beings, which he regarded as the immediate laws 
ot the vital principle, and which are sensibility, a force of 
contraction, of expansion, fixed situation, and of tonicity . 
Blumenbach likewise admitted five, sensibility, irritability, 
contractility , a plastic force or force of formation , and a 


VITAL EVOLUTION. 


233 


special force of life. The functions made by each bear the 
impress of these first considerations of living phenomena, or 
properties from which they emanate. In his system, Bichat 
held the same number of original operative forces, but he 
altered both their names and the names of the functions. 
His quadruple form of sensibility and contractility, so well 
known, so popular, is thought by many to have reduced 
order out of confusion, and to hold up clearer lights before 
the investigator of the physiological problems. 

But after all his great labours, are w^e not still annoyed 
with much darkness? and does not the order of ideas his 
system unfolds, present lacunce to the mind, which make us 
suspect it not to be the true copy of nature ? Sensibility, 
for example, is the faculty of the organs through which im¬ 
pressions are made. It is the faculty of impressions. The 
results of its action in some organs, are simple movements, of 
whi£h the mind is unconscious; in others, the results are 
sensations , movements in which the mind participates. Can 
we call by the same name of sensibility , the cause , which 
produces effects so opposite, so widely different? and does 
the distinguishing of sensibility into organic and animal 
explain the difference in the results, and vanish the diffi¬ 
culty? But to proceed. 

Were the living properties tangible to the mind, authors 
could not differ so much in their appreciations; but being 
neatly the most complex, general expressions of vital phe¬ 
nomena, the boundary lines, which separate between where 
the light and the darkness fall, differences can but exist. 
The phenomena are more obvious; accordingly good physi¬ 
ologists harmonize more with respect to them; and, how¬ 
ever diverge the points from which they set out, or the un¬ 
known of these phenomena, their systems, as is manifest 
from the exhibit just made, quadrate in substance. 

By all the functions the nature vital competes with the 
material movements, and progresses in time all lives. Their 
definition, classification and history are physiology; the de¬ 
scription, arrangement of their organs,—anatomy. The 
anatomy and physiology are never the same, but modify at 

20 


234 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


each point along the living line. The foetal life of all, and 
that of the inferior races, are achieved by a less number ol 
efforts, than that of the superior. These diminish in the 
direct ratio of the growing simplicity of structure; so that 
each living: individual of all the races, as in nature there is 
nothing uniform, presents a mode of vitality peculiar to 
itself, varying in intensity or amount, and modifies the 
general movement of the material forces by a greater or 
less number of acts. 

These forces, or gravitation , the attractions of particles, 
the polar energies never, as I have so often said, relax activity 
—worlds constantly dart through space; the particles of all 
bodies exist in ceaseless effort. All life plays,—moves 
through time in the torrent of this material action, vehicle of 
ages. The functions of life are only so many modes of action, 
action which comes from without, as the sensibility, excita¬ 
bility of physiologists sufficiently testify; life is this material 
motion continued , modified by the special forces, the preroga¬ 
tives of the opificer of the living body. Life too is ceaseless 
motion, and to be, is necessarily so, since it demands, as a 
condition, the respondence or co-action of its own forces with 
those of the material activities. 

Accordingly, the simpler the structure, the fewer the re¬ 
sponding efforts or functions, the more the life resembles the 
life universal, and the organized body, the body anorganic, 
as already early noticed in this work. Indeed, this organ¬ 
izing life to us has its limits, beyond which no distinction 
marks it out in the great animation of nature. Its first essays 
are scarcely distinguishable; it terminates abruptly in man in 
the ascending series. In his opposite extremity are placed 
the lithophytes , zoophytes : if it descends below, it escapes his 
resources; above him are the angels, beyond the flight of his 
zoology. From the lithophyte to him extends its long line 
composed of a definite number of varying forms. On the 
one side of this line, its forces dispute strength with those of 
matter on the other, and its fulness, varying at every point, 
is in proportion, as I have said, to the simplicity or com¬ 
plexity of the organs and functions. Accordingly man, 


VITAL EVOLUTION 


235 


completeness, fulness of all sublunary organization, enjoying 
sensibility , one of the organ-making forces, in the most emi¬ 
nent degree, offers the greatest resistance,—modifies the 
most the great action without,—and triumphs most over 
matter. And if we were to conceive this line extended, or 
another order of organic existence above him, for which there 
appears the most ample room, in which the organs would he 
more multiplied, the sensibility, all the special forces of life, 
more exalted, the operative energies of matter would be 
brought still more under the dominion of these forces. If 
we suppose angels—armed with great strength, their living 
powers appear to exercise the most complete sovereignty 
over matter. They pass through space independently of the 
laws of its motion; they smote the army of Sennacherib on 
the heights of Jerusalem, struck with blindness some of the 
people of Sodom, resisted the maddened fires of Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar’s furnace.— * 

The duration of individual life appears not in the direct 
ratio of its fulness or perfection. Many of the vegetables 
outlive by many centuries the longest lived of the animals. 
Nor does its impetuosity, or the more it modifies the great 
action without, regulate its length, since man outlives many 
of the mammalia , birds, and fishes. In general, the more 
slow and equable, the longer it endures. And, since the 
essence of its progressive motion is alimentation, or the sub¬ 
jugation of the forces of foreign bodies, and spoliation of their 
forms, wrnre its own energies only expended in such spoli¬ 
ation, for aught we can see, they might admit of repose, and 
secure greater longevity. But by a law veiled among the 
secrets of animated existence, these bodies, thus converted 
and modified, rebel against their modifiers, and require a 
new r series of efforts for their expulsion. They will traverse 
only the circle of changes demanded by the organs, but no 
farther. They will not remain permanently nutrified. 
There seems a natural incompetency on their part or in their 
modifiers, which causes them simply to organize, but not 
to remain fixed in the tissues. By this law of nature neces¬ 
sitating perpetual alimentation by disalimenting the sub- 



236 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


stances which nourish', only a single life made free from 
death among us, might convert, in sufficient duration, count¬ 
less millions of times, the entire organizable planet, into its 
own substance. 

I need not repeat here the great inequality of the two 
classes of forces, of which the motion of life is in the strug¬ 
gle; or that those of time are always equally full, while 
those of life as equally vacillate—vary from conception to 
death. But if the forces vary, the organs themselves vary 
not less. So decisive are these organic changes, that each 
period of our lives necessitates an anatomy and physiology 
mostly applicable to itself; and those who write such works, 
find it convenient to fix dates, to which their descriptions 
apply. We will terminate this section by some reflections 
on the different phases of our existence. 

If the greatness, excellence, value of a thing consist in its 
unchangeableness, permanency, how r humble, how much 
like nothing does man appear, as seen in his image reflected 
by the glass of time ! Behold him aged. The weight of 
a hundred years has bowed him. He is bending slowly to 
the horizontal position of his approaching rest. His life is 
flowing back into the great bosom of nature, and she is gently 
laying him down, that he may not fall. Death has come 
near him, whitened his hair to ornament the sepulchre ; and, 
with his strength extracted his juices, that his transition may 
be smooth and easy. His muscular substance, no longer 
useful to him, is wasted ; and the dry skin pleated, contracts 
round his bones. His robe of flesh, too heavy, is laid aside, 
the apparel of other, more vigorous days. He is noiseless 
and motionless where he sits, in imitation of the silence and 
rest to which he is tending. His features are cold, and pale; 
the fire of life is quenching, to harmonize w 7 ith the winter of 
the tomb. 

Hold him now up before the mirror of time; and he will 
decompose into several distinct beings. Compare him with 
himself; he is one with nature, but many with time. He 
has only preserved his being’s model, and lost all its forms 
except the last. Through how many deep waters of sorrow. 


VITAL EVOLUTION. 


237 


oceans of tears has he come! Since he began, how many 
funerals he has made, tombs he has filled, in the dark gulf 
of the years he has withstood ! How many dissimilar pieces 
compose his whole, wdiich resemble him now almost as little 
as any thing beside! One hundred years since, he was his 
mother’s blue-eyed boy. Place this boy before him, and but 
for tradition, he never could conceive, it had once been him¬ 
self—that in it he had begun existence. He exists still, but 
this boy was a phantom which vanished—long since ceased 
to be. Subsequently he was a “ whining schoolboy and 
afterwards to correspond with the impetuosity of his vigor, 
the flames of love and ambition were kindled in his heart. 
These two last nearer to him, are less like him than the first, 
to which he approaches in his helplessness. 

Where are now the different things he has been, and what 
proportions do they bear to one another, and himself ? His 
whole tangible substance has often been com pletely changed or 
renewed ; and he has brought with him no part of his origi¬ 
nal, organic materiality. He is materially a new being, vene¬ 
rable, bowing, tottering to natural nothingness. The differ¬ 
ent phases of his existence—the different things he has lived 
—are gone from where they were—fled—shapeless, motion¬ 
less, nothing. The death before him forms but the shadow 
to the solemn funerals of himself he has passed through and 
been compelled to witness. He is simply a variable quantity 
projected through an arc of time; years have had his mould¬ 
ings. He is the union of the special forces of life, and those 
of matter which immerses him, both of which continue, as 
we have seen, always in nisu . To the natural variation of 
the intensity of the former, are due his different phases, his 
different, dissimilar selves, and the deaths over which he has 
stepped. All that unites the different forms his years have 
moulded, his integral parts, are these special forces trans¬ 
mitted in his original germ by parents. 

What is he? materially always becoming new, in his 
forces growing old. His course through matter, whose ener¬ 
gies always remain the same, is boundless, and promises him 
eternal duration; but his individuality is in his own forces, 

20 * 


238 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


which perish. If matter, one parent part, would sustain him 
forever, he lacks the permanency of power to measure strength 
with it, and dies. The waters of time, dyeing deep his ex¬ 
istence with their many colors, bear him from his mother’s 
womb, wash him up, and leave him on the threshold of 
another world, with which his forces renewed , are ever suc¬ 
cessfully to compete. 

What is he in his thought? The mutations of his intel¬ 
lectual vary and offer as striking contrasts, as those of his 
organic life. I shall point them out elsewhere. However 
discrepant, they are but one; although it is not so easy to 
ascertain what may be the medium of their union. Locke 
and his sectateurs made consciousness this medium or the 
principle of identity. Whatever it be, it ought to extend 
to all the phases to make a whole. We see nothing in com¬ 
mon between intellectual infancy and intellectual caducity 
to unite' the two. Mind is either one in its own nature, 
independently of the gradations which the evolution and 
accidents of organization mark upon it, or in the special 
forces, with which it enjoys mysterious connections. 

The mind makes its explosion with the development of 
the organs, and suffers change in all their changes. Toward 
the last term of life, the power of retaining ideas is almost 
extinguished; it can scarcely connect any two successive 
moments of existence together; and all that it contained is 
pretty well blotted out. If night has come over the eyes, 
it is growing apace in the mind; it is the night of the dead, 
of which nature gives the foretaste. I will make an import¬ 
ant observation.—These our moral phases are to be reviewed , 
and placed to proper account in the great life, to which the 
present one conducts. 

• ' V > . - ' ' . , * 

SECTION II. 

S 'v : ; {•' , ■' ' - ' '• , • y \ 

DEATH. 

The Greeks regarded death as a beautiful youth. Ac¬ 
cording to Hesiod, he is the son of Night. Euripides intro- 


DEATH. 


239 


duced him in his Alcestis covered in a black robe, and armed 
with cutting steel. Some of the Roman Muses represented 
him as overshadowing the battle-field, and pointing out his 
victims with bloody fingers. Horace has spoken some 
handsome things of him.—In his perpetual journey, he 
knocks at the cottages of the poor and the palaces of kings. 
Dante and Shakspeare armed him with terrific powers, and 
gave him dominions. Milton made him a hideous monster. 
The Scripture personifications of him are terrible and sub¬ 
lime. 

Some philosophers lavish their eulogies upon death, court 
our approbation, and recommend him to our admiration. 
With them he comes with his hands full of poppies, and the 
sweet cup of oblivion for all our sorrows. Universal conso- 
lator, he comes kindly at a sacred hour, when we are in the 
greatest need; the only power, who, by his delicious slum¬ 
bers, can quiet the pains which have wasted, tormented us 
for long years; and separate us from our corruption. He 
visits us only for good;—to shield us, when the tumults of 
life rise too high, and its storms blow too heavy upon us;— 
to relieve us, when we have become hideous from the wrin¬ 
kles and toothlessness of age; loathsome from progressive 
disease; or our bosoms full of incurable griefs, which time 
has nourished. But for him, our ills and torments would 
have no end, and we should be delivered over a perpetual 
prey to their rage and fury. Thus Seneca energetically— 

— Heu! quiim dulce malum mortalibus additum 
Vitae durus amor : quum patet malis 
Effugium, et miseros libera mors vocet, 

Partus seternd placidus quiete. 

And again— 

Optanda mors est, sine metu mortis mori :— 

Socrates looked upon death, as a long voyage into a foreign 
land, where the mind is solaced with novelty and pleasure. 
And Juvenal has given us his opinion with advice— 

Fortem pasce animum, mortis terrore carentem , 

Qui spatium vitse extremum inter munera ponat 
Naturae .— 


240 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


Other philosophers regard death as cruel, unmerciful, 
odious, revengeful, insidious, atrocious, implacable, terrible; 
the constant and greatest enemy of our species. He knocks 
from the lip the uplifted cup of pleasure; disappoints in the 
midst of the brightest hopes; makes his approach at the 
most unwelcome hour; snatches the bride in her loveliness 
from the embrace of her promised spouse.— Erepta est, toro 
intacto, puella innupta. With his scythe he mows the fairest 
dowers; cuts the stem; orphans helpless infancy; and stands 
ever ready to strike. 

—Prima quse vitam dedit hora carpsit: 

Nascentes rnorimur, finisque ab origine pendet. 

In our bosoms we wear his uncicatrizable wmunds. The 
deep, convulsive sobbings of the heart; the loud, wild cry 
of grief and despair; silent, tremulous agony; and flowing 
tears, announce his presence. His language is— 

Abstulit atra dies — 0flebiles nodes!—amari dies !— 

So w r ept Cardan.for his child; Nazianzen, for Pulcheria; 
Alexander, for Hephsestion; Adrian, for his Antinous; Her¬ 
cules and Orpheus, for Hylas and Eurydice. On the death 
of Vespasian and Aug. Caesar, according to Aurelius Victor 
and Paterculus, the Romans bewailed, until they feared the 
ruin of the world.—“ Orbis ,” says the latter, “ ruinam timu - 
eramus .” 

Homer defines the sorrow of death, “ a dark rushing cloud 
We live continually amid his menaces, his terrors, dis¬ 
asters, his desolations and devastations. How beautifully 
true that:— 

Nascimur in lachrymis , lachrymis quoque vita madescit; 

Sed vitam rursus linquimas in lachrymis. 

Drapery mostly of the ebon hues, symbol of darkness and 
night,* is his outward show; urns, cenotaphia, sepulchres, 

* Some one not remembered, has written the history of sepulchres. Had 
we a well-digested monograph of the various colors, and things used in 
mourning; the views of nations respecting them, which prescribe the forms 
of funerals, the manner of sepulture, and the rites of the dead to be observed 
by the living, it would form a good syllabus of the laws, philosophy, morals, 
letters, arts, manners, religion, usages of mankind. 


DEATH. 


241 


sarcophagi, mausolea, the lettered marble, statues, his mo¬ 
numents; his poetry, the elegia, epitaphia; and his local 
habitation the whole world. 

However different the durations they traverse, the forms 
they occupy, the end of all lives is inevitable, certain. This 
order of nature, so constantly published, so rigidly enforced, 
has not met the entire approbation of mortals or the immor¬ 
tals. “Dans sa douleur,” says Fenelon, “elle (meaning 
Calypso)se trouvait malheureuse d’ etre immortelle.” Chiron, 
the illustrious instructor of Aesculapius, Hercules, Jason and 
others, lamented his immortality with the deepest sorrow, 
and most piteously begged death at the hands of the great 
Thunderer. Like him many of the gods mourned over 
their doom of perpetual life, and desired only to taste the 
sweet cup of Erebus. The daughter of Oceanus offered 
Ulysses the unfading flower of manhood in perpetual life, 
but he refused. 

Few men, however, are contented with final oblivion, 
with not leaving behind some riflet on the sea of life, to 
mark wTere they rose or sunk. Many strive hard by illus¬ 
trious actions to secure the trump of fame, and eternal re¬ 
membrance:—some by summoning the wolf and the vulture 
to the feast of their prey; by the clashing of shields; by 
the flashing and thunder of living war; by some great and 
good invention, some noble achievement, illustrious disco¬ 
very in science. Thus had bronze, and marble, and letters, 
and things not decayed, the whole earth had been a con¬ 
fused heap of their memoriabilia —symbols of the phantoms 
of human , mortal immortality ; and living men been deprived 
of admiring men yet to be. The same darkness, which 
conceals what has been, is still in futurity to obliviate what 
will be. Sepulchres have sepulchres in this darkness. The 
Bcetian and Egyptian Thebes, Carthage, Delos, Babylon, 
Sparta, Argos, Nineve, Agrigentum, Persepolis, Ilium, My- 
cense, with all their golden palaces, ivory thrones, magnifi¬ 
cent tombs, are erased. Cities, countries, sepulchres, what¬ 
ever holds man, find other sepulchres to hold themselves. 
Amid this infinite mortality, he cannot be immortal. It 


242 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


was in the contemplation of such desolation, Servius Sul- 
pitius, in a notable letter to Tully, consoled himself for the 
oblivion of his own life, and so ought we. 

Many of the immortals, as we have seen, most earnestly 
desired to die, and could not, while men receive death at 
the hands of nature as their birth-right, their inalienable 
heritage; and piteously rear up monuments to petition pos¬ 
terity for perpetuity in remembrance. No being, that ever 
tastes the sweet cup of life, but desires to drink it to the 
last drop, and that drop forever coming. Chiron desired 
death only because he could not endure the agonies of the 
incurable wound he received from the poisoned arrow of 
Hercules; and the beautiful goddess Calypso, because the 
pain was insupportable occasioned by the unrequited love 
and long delay of her lover. 

The inevitable accumulation of afflictions, which Hero¬ 
dotus considered as a sufficient apology for the brevity of 
his history, ought to make us appreciate the kindness of 
nature, and conciliate us to death. Had she intended us to 
endure, how could she have formed our substance so lace¬ 
rating, vulnerating—so destructible? With such contexture 
of existence, how can we continue in the fluctuations of the 
universe so great, so violent, sudden? Our world itself 
only survives its own dissolution in the permanency of the 
forces which recombine its shattered forms. Our impelling 
forces once overthrown, never recombine, and continue us. 
Our bodies once broken, remain dust. Our true immor¬ 
tality refused by nature, is in the cultivation of piety, wdiich, 
through u patience and tribulation will eternally unite us 
with the Sovereign Creator. 

But it is neither the fable nor the morality of death, I 
am here to consider; but death a law of nature regulating 
the affairs of her economy. Dum fatum fugimus , stulti 
fatum irruimus. In perpetuating the shadowy dead, ada¬ 
mant is crumbling, brass, what is most durable, is wasting 
in the friction of time, while she is making continually fresh 
deposits in the tomb. Mortals make supplication, and, until 
the last sigh, grasp eagerly at every forlorn means of life, 


DEATH. 


243 


fearful to plunge the chilly blackness of the gulf which is 
forever to hide them. Would she turn to behold them 
perishing the second time in the ruin of their monuments; 
hear the piteous supplications they make bewailing the 
bitter portion she allots them; relent in commiseration; and 
shat up all the gates of her empire on death, what new phe¬ 
nomena must she soon present? 

The great depository of all her living once closed; the 
epochs of ages arrested in their flight; all the spacious cham¬ 
bers, where she accommodates her lives would soon be 
crowded to overflowing, from the impetuosity of reproduction. 
Were it practicable, the entire mass of terrestrial matter in 
time, would be transferred in the various creatures, to the 
organic state, necessitating its augmentation. The great 
balance between the mineral and organic portions being lost, 
universal anthropophagism would be more horrible and re¬ 
pulsive than death. It would no longer be simply Pyrrha 
casting stones behind her; or Chrono^ devouring his own 
children soon as they are born, but children and parents, 
with worse than cannibal ferocity, devouring indiscrimi¬ 
nately one another. 

Every animated being demands, as an indispensable con¬ 
dition, that a portion of the terrestrial matter remain in the 
anorganic state while it exists. This matter bears unknown 
proportions in this respect. A definite creation of matter, 
therefore, and the creation of a life expanding indefinitely 
without restraint—an indefinite creation of life—are imprac¬ 
ticable, impossible in the existing order of things. Such a 
life even as ours, infinitely b6low many others in expanding 
force, we may conceive, put in operation on a planet no 
larger than ours, at an epoch not distant, would fill up all its 
continents; and to continue, demand dimensions in time 
threatening infinite space. As it increased in size, its recip¬ 
rocal attractions would be proportionally increased, modify¬ 
ing the length of its days, nights, and seasons. But since 
the dynamical conditions of our system are absolutely fixed 
in the quantity of matter each planet contains, a life like this, 
unchecked by death, would be perfectly unsolar; would con- 


244 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


stantly jostle the great statical balance of the world, and is 
contradicted in its very constitution. If nature has restricted 
the motions of all matter to definite quantities, so she has 
the motions of all lives, generation, the springing fountain, 
death the restraining force. If her great bodies finishing 
their weary journeys commence anew, so do all her lives in 
renascent ages. 

Since bodies purely mineral or azotic, being the support¬ 
ers, are as essential to vitality as those wdiich are organifiable 
or nutritive, the two classes hold equal rank; the one excit¬ 
ing and sustaining the living actions, the other operating 
as their immediate seat. Many of our lives, at the rates of 
fecundity with which they are armed, without death, would 
work out their own extinction in a given epoch, by con¬ 
suming the alible matters, or by destroying the alimentario- 
mineral balance. Death, consequently, primarily necessi¬ 
tated by the laws of motion imposed on matter, by sparing 
the stores of the immediate organic elements, or by maintain¬ 
ing this balance, is the condition of all vital perpetuity. Lives 
capable of expanding by generation and contracting by death 
are alone physical, since they all need to be warmed at the 
great fire of the sun. 

Every living body is essentially individual, and enjoys 
peculiar relations with all others. They are either its stimu¬ 
lators or nutrifiers, or both. How many are the nourishments, 
are the stimulations of life, and from how many sources do 
they come? Light stimulates the eye, the blood the heart, 
an idea, volition.—Suspension of the planets’ motion, of the 
solar effusion, change in the constitution of bodies, would 
effectually kill as the suspension of the circulation, of respi¬ 
ration, innervation.—Animated bodies are only the more 
delicate and sensitive parts of their world, any derangement 
of which is derangement to them. 

The portions of the earth absolutely azotic, probably co¬ 
operate with death in limiting the number of all species. 
What proportion of the organic elements lives at any one time 
cannot be determined, but we may think, nature continually 
lavishes life fully up to the means she has at command, or 
to the amount of these elements returned from the organic 


DEATH—CAUSES OF. 


245 


state. And, from the rapidity with which death, at certain 
epochs seems to traverse the whole earth, it is probable, the 
matter returning from organization is occasionally too much 
consumed, or life is put a little in the advance of its means. 

Matter is a fixed, life, a variable quantity. Death adjusts 
the latter to the supporters, and regulates the amount 
through time. Epidemics, as some writer has remarked, 
appear to act as safety valves, letting off its occasional ex¬ 
cessive accumulations, and keeping the great ship steady, 
which bears all the living across the sea of time. 

CAUSES OF DEATH. 

We are in absolute ignorance of the causes which first 
made us live; we know not those which fix the limits to 
our duration. Since the origin of our species, history pre¬ 
sents these limits as having greatly varied. Human life on 
this side the flood compared with that on the other, presents 
the most frightful chasm. How drowsy, tortoise-footed the 
motion of the one! the other is quick and rapid as “a 
weaver’s shuttle.” 

Early after the destruction by water, all the historical 
monuments show the mean duration modified a little by 
locality, has remained the same. It is true, however, those 
who kneel at the feet of the Muses for inspiration, often 
bestow on the great men, for whose achievements they tune 
the lyre, a strength* and sometimes an age, which far tran¬ 
scend those of common mortals. But their testimony is not 
convincing, since they are only responsible for the truth of 
fiction, and not of history. 

Some speculative philosophers offer as a satisfactory solu¬ 
tion of antediluvian longevity, the extreme clearness, deep 
cerulean color,—healthy beauty—of the primeval sky; the 
superior purity and salubrity of the first climates; the stable 
temperature of the seasons before the age of Boreas, which 
knew no storms or frost; the pre-eminent nourishing powers 
of the alible matters; the great gaiety, joyfulness of early 

* Vid. iEniad, vi. Virgil. 

21 


r 


246 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


people.—The dissolution of the earth in the diluvian waters; 
universal disintegration of its whole face; destruction of its 
lirst order; its general deterioration according to them, have 
poisoned life in its sources; and located death near its thres¬ 
hold. 

Contrarily, whatever influences such geologic changes 
might exert, we should believe our days have been preter- 
naturally shortened, and secondary causes instituted to sus¬ 
tain them in the new limits. From what has already been 
advanced in this chapter, it is manifest, so far as our world 
is concerned, it would support us forever, its forces never 
varying in relation to life; and, that since we live in its 
reaction, we die from the overthrow and failure of our own 
forces to sustain us. Nature knows but one manner of life. 
The conditions of antediluvian vitality were precisely the 
same as at present. Men lived by constant alimentation and 
stimulation; by the simultaneous organization and disorgan¬ 
ization of the surrounding bodies. Although the changes 
the earth underwent may have been great and numerous, 
from the sudden explosion, and increased activity of the 
molecular attractions during the deluge, yet if it be capable 
far as concerned, as it most undoubtedly is, of continual 
support, and would constitute us immortal, did it circum¬ 
scribe all our conditions, it is most unphilosophical to attri¬ 
bute the shortening of life to pure physical agency or dilu-' 
vian action. The causes must be moral; the limits affixed, 
of Divine appointment, yet achieved by natural means. 

The forces, which would rear us up from fragile infancy, 
and establish the flow T er and vigor of manhood, it would 
appear reasonable, ought to continue us. But this progres¬ 
sive perfection, contrarily to all reason, stops suddenly; and 
the same forces hitherto so successful, allow our organs to 
deteriorate. Propelling us up the Orient of our days, they 
augment in intensity to the summit, maintaining in the 
evolution and change of our tissues harmony in the form, 
substance and use. Afterwards they begin to change in 
their chemifying tendencies, and alter the modes of produc¬ 
tive activity. Their morphology is no longer the same 


DEATH—CAUSES OF. 


247 


“All living bodies,” Beclard remarks so justly, “commence 
in the soft or fluid state, and continue to grow harder and 
harder till death.” Ossification hitherto confined to the 
bony system, seizes on, and attacks the soft parts, deprive 
them of their elasticity and other qualities essential to their 
operative functions. Parts ramollesce, atrophy, induresce, 
hypertrophy,—make perpetual deviations from the primi¬ 
tive types of structure. The general hardening of the 
organs grows apace. Hysnomia, misrule reigns in the re¬ 
public of the living body; augments more and more, until 
its elements are transferred to the action of affinities purely 
chemical, the action of the sepulchre. Sad decline, altera¬ 
tion in the laws of vital morphogeny, which places the 
sepulchre among the wants of our nature! 

The scales in which our forces are weighed, lose their 
natural balance; and open a thousand gates to as many forms 
of death. How nature has planned, toiled to make sure of 
our extinction! In our career, if we run by some of the 
bye-path of death, we cannot escape, are sure to fall at 
others. How prodigious, multiform is our mortality ! Man, 
creatures descended from an Eternal Being, seem hard to 
kill; and has demanded at nature’s hands the enactment of 
a code of innumerable laws. In a single law she holds the 
rein of universal, material activity; by a single effort she 
moves the whole frame of matter through space; but how 
many efforts does it demand of her to arrest, and suspend 
the vital motion ! Heath is an eulogium on creative power! 

So energetic are these laws of extinction planted along 
life’s pathway, that few, very few of all the living escape to 
fall by the last of the series; or run through all the possible 
deteriorations of their organs, and expire in senile death. 
Around the great axis of vitality, about which the animated 
races are rotated; as individuals, they describe every possible 
section or segment of the circle; while, as just noticed, it is 
the lot of very few to traverse all the phases of mortality. 
These phases from their number, contrast, I may observe, 
most strikingly with the singleness of the ultramaterial 
career, described in the physiology of our sacred books. 


248 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


From the embryon to the term of perfect development, 
the formative forces, undisturbed by disease, are regular and 
uniform in their operations, maintaining the proper order of 
structure and functions. Each organ lives freely in itself, 
and in the whole. The action, it reflects, and those it 
receives reflected, comport with well being. All the functions 
are full; and, in the vertebrata , the tripedal life, energetic. 
But beyond this term, the guardian power, which presides 
over the organism, begins to abandon it to progressive ruin 
and desolation. The space, which the pure and the perfect 
action of life circumscribes, is that which nature seems alone 
solicitous to secure; and is that, which encompasses repro¬ 
duction. All beyond is sheer gratuity, the pathway, which 
slopes gently down from the beating pulse. Reproduction 
is a great end in all lives. 

All beings continue by the equilibrium of force. Senile 
death is the subversion of this equilibrium secured by organic 
deterioration Animals perish through excess of ossification, 
progressive hardening of their soft tissues. We see nothing 
like this in chemical morphology. The plastic forces of 
matter never change the mode of their productive activity 
from dysnomy. Did we witness one form of matter invading 
another,—whole islands the soil of the fertile valley, tending 
to lapidification, as we do the soft animal parts, to abnormal 
ossification, et cet., we might suspect changes in the economy 
of matter had operated in shortening cidiluvian life; and 
material causes are still active in achieving natural death. 
Consequently, the causes of such death attach alone to the 
nature or conditions of vitality. The mechanism of all 
mortality from age, is the depravation of nutrition or spurious 
chemifactions of the organs. This depravation or cause is 
an ultimate irreducible fact. The deviation from the normal 
structure progresses, until the organs become unfit for the 
display of their functions; the forces weaken, exhaust, and 
they suspend forever. Could living bodies sustain steadily 
the molecular formative action of their organs, they would 
be immortal. But they cannot sustain it; it will pass through 
the appointed, changes; they must reach the dust of the tomb. 


GENERATION. 


249 


Generations are born hungry; this dust is their food; these 
changes are nature’s preparations for their festival hour. 

May I remark here;—men have dreamed, they would live 
their lives over again in nature; would revisit the light of the 
same sun, they left burning on closing their eyes on their de¬ 
parture.* The great returning year of Pythagoras, of many of 
the ancient sects, which brings up into existence again ah who 
had perished by death; all that had w r asted in time, but flat¬ 
tered the hopes, the vanities, the ambitions of mortals. Since 
then the light has struck deeper into the labyrinth of the 
world. A great revolution impends; the great year will 
truly come; the long silence will break, but nature wall wear 
a new face. 


SECTION III. 


PERPETUATION BY GENERATION. 


Life has been assimilated to an isthmus, a narrow strip 
of land; on either side roll the two great oceans of eternity. 


* Our Franklin, always thoughtful, ingenious, on beholding some flies 
brought across the sea in a cask of wine, revive when exposed to the sun, 
conceived it possible, their example might be imitated by a human being. 
He evinced resignation to be housed a few hundred years in a cask of Madeira, 
could he be sure of solar revivescence, and of revisiting his dear country. But 
could he have compared the scanty conditions of insect life with the great, 
voluminous life of his own species, he had not thought so easily to have 
broken the bar of human death, and effected resurrection. Could he have 
seen living mature with the great modern eyes of MM. Cuvier, Geoffroy— 
Saint-Hilaire, Serres, he had felt all the emptiness of such a conception. 
It w&s his glory to have shown the gleaming lightning its path, but not mor¬ 
tals the way through the grave to life. 

The desire and hope of returning back to the world were born with the 
human heart. The practice of embalming among the ancient Egyptians, and 
nations of the east, ascends beyond all history. By this kind of preservation, 
they expected to keep their dead bodies for the great returning year of life, 
when the soul would again have use for them. They looked for the per¬ 
petuity of life in the same tangible forms. How tender the love, which 
preserved them ? A distant descendant could behold his fathers through 
series of generations back in the same sarcophagus. And how early the 
light of the Bible fell on distant nations, giving form to their fables? 

21* 


250 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


By constant generation all animated beings emerge from the 
one; by death replunge the other. If death kills, generation 
makes alive. The two forces counteract each other, librate 
in the great scale of time. 

Generation! great law of creation, inexhaustible reservoir! 
which holds all the subtle lire of animation, and pours over 
the face of nature the floods of life contemporaneously with 
those of time—Reservoir! whose springing fountain is the 
Divinity; and whose equable fulness blots from the face of 
things the inequalities, chasms occasioned by death. In Deo 
vivimus, movemus, movemur et summus. It is not only 
true now in Deo vivimus , but it will still be true through all 
incomputable duration. We shall never get rid of the cause 
which first made us live, and continue in ourselves. Yet, 
with passion the transcendental philosophers materialize all 
phenomena; and present nature in dress and energy purely 
corporeal. They locate the fountain of life far as possible 
from the active sphere of the Divinity. Generation with 
them is simply the conflict of some subtle matters of opposite 
tendencies. But what is the charm of felicity—in what con¬ 
sists the supreme beauty and good of pure materiality? 
Can a life, which flows from one of the great animating 
forces of the universe, accord better with reason, be more 
excellent, than one, which breaks fresh from the foot of the 
Creator’s throne, of which this force is the simple vehicle; 
brings with it its own transcendent energy; and diffuses 
itself through myriads of admirable and excellent forms? 
And is a world under the control of Divine prescience and 
benevolence, less estimable, than one under the undisturbed 
autocracy of matter ? The eye of God too watchful, too close, 
frets and annoys the course of moral events. O fatum illuc- 
tabile generis humani! 

All that live derive their existence from beings similar to 
themselves. Generation is the transmission of the nature 
essentially vital or organific to a separate portion of the 
maternal organization dedicated by nature, which causes it 
to attract upon itself or absorb bodies in contact or transmit¬ 
ted to it, and convert them into its own proper substance. 


GENERATION. 


I 


25 L 


B j this transmission it ceases to continue a living portion of 
the mother as it had been, lives in itself, and becomes a new 
individual resembling its parents. 

The manner or mechanism of this function dualistic in 
all the more perfect races, is modified throughout the living 
series. The production of the first animated forms is clothed 
in the mystery of creation; their origin since inexplicable 
has continued to vex philosophy. No topic has ever been 
more fecund in research and speculation. Malpighi, Halier, 
He Graaf, Spallanzani, Yalisnieri,—with ardent impetuosity, 
and great compass of thought, entered the wide field of ex¬ 
perimentation.* They pushed forward their utmost glances, 
reasoned up what they could see, but were everywhere met 
with Procul, Of Procul este profani! Buffon, gaudy with 
the shining form of thought, approached confidently nature’s 
vital elaboratory. But his molecules organiques , and internal 
nutritive moulds for the use of the formative power, are now 
things for the ivy and the dust. If nature, in our sensitive 
race, has thrown the veil of modesty over the exercise of this 
function, she has not been less careful to keep her own 
secret. 

It is ours to contemplate this function as one of the great 

* Dr. Franklin, as put down in his published works, holding the existence 
of two seminal fluids as believed in his day, conceived the phenomena of 
procreation depended upon the intimate union of these fluids; and that a 
human being might be mechanically reproduced. With this view, in a ves¬ 
sel containing water of the living temperature, he mixed the two fluids with 
the expectation of a foetus. No doubt he was imitating Spallanzani, who 
was filling the world with frogs by the application of some diluted mineral 
acid to the spawn of that animal. This experiment of the Doctor’s is a laugh¬ 
able reproach to his genius. But great men, some one has said, have great 
follies. Not only he, but others were misled by this specious hypothesis. 
Buffon mentions, in his Nat. Hist.* as triumphant proof of its truth, a man 
who was actually impregnated by a woman, and brought forth. Richerand, 
Gerdy, mention cases which must be similar, the mechanism of which is 
now well known. A very extraordinary one occurred quite recently in the 
district where the author resides. 


* Wood’s translation. 


252 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


repairing forces of the living economy. Adelon,* Cuvier,f 
Tiedemann the writers generally on natural history, have 
developed in extenso , all its modifications with those of its 
apparatus throughout the zoological series, to whom I refer 
for the details. 

Since the scythe of death sweeps over the whole field 
allotted to life, it is manifest, but for the continued, energe¬ 
tic activity of this great repairing force, soon the whole earth 
would be one tomb, and the career of ages for ever sus¬ 
pended. On the one side its action is limited by ovarian 
embryogeny or germification; on the other, by the dispos¬ 
able amount of the alible matters. Since there is always 
excessive plethora in renascent life, the embryogenous limit 
seems to hang in progressive time, with infinitely less heavy 
weight, than that of th e pabulum. It is obvious the natural 
rates, impetuosity of generation, is in prodigiously great 
disproportion to the means of vital evolution. So great is 
this disproportion, we may conceive, were our world made 
simply the theatre of this function, and were others to fur¬ 
nish the means of maintenance, it is not impossible in defi¬ 
nite time, the rapidity of these rates, despite of actual mor¬ 
tality, would be sufficient to people with our 1 lives myriads 
of such planets as ours. 

So far as the distinction of sexes exist or can be traced 
down the living chain in the animal kingdom, nature, with 
some exceptions, seems to hold in excess the means of female 
fecundation. Although the sexes are procreated not far 
from equal in numbers, the fecundating power of the male, 
in most all the species, appears to be calculated far above 
the number of the ova or possible progeny of its female. So 
that a solitary male is competent to sustain le plaisir delicieus 
of a number of females, and to stimulate to all their offspring. 
Besides, what flings the balance of this mysterious power 
much more on the side of the males is, that the season of love 

* Physiologie de 1’ homme before cited. The account succinctly but 
handsomely drawn up. 

t Anatomie compare. 

X Traite complet de physiologie de V homme. 


GENERATION. 


253 


returns to the greatest number, when a solitary union may 
be sufficient, and in many families, suffice for a numerous 
progeny. Much time too is consumed in incubation, gesta¬ 
tion, maternal cares, while the force which fecundates con¬ 
tinues energetic, restless. 

In meridional countries, and those whose climates are 
warm, where religion is in favor or does not forbid, this 
balance of reproductive power possessed by the males, tends 
to polygamy common to the majority of the animal races, 
and finds its equilibrium. We know T the personification of 
love, the Cyprian Beauty was born of the fluctuating, un¬ 
steady waves of the sea. Friedlander* estimates the num¬ 
ber of children, which may be born to the polygam, to be 
925, while the greatest product of a single marriage, is only 
32. As 925, therefore, is to 32, so is the probable male to 
the female fecundity of our species. In some of the lower 
orders, we know this difference is prodigiously greater, but 
cannot tell what it may be in all. Besides some are natu¬ 
rally monogamous. 

Human polyandrism exists limitedly in the hyperborean 
regions, occasioned there, according to M. Virey, by the su¬ 
perior number of male over female births. The female bee 
lives in her seraglio surrounded by the males; and like her 
the vegetable tribes are very generally polyandrous. But 
these exceptions cannot compensate for the general inferior¬ 
ity of female fecundity, so that the limit of the feebler sex 
in this respect is one of the true boundaries to the possible 
amount of terrestrial animation. It is almost certain, how¬ 
ever, the great life of all the species is never affected by such 
a restraining force, since, when we compare the provisionary 
beginnings of vitality in creatures with the means of susten- 
tation—vital maturation or the nutrienda with the nutrientia , 
the disproportion between the actual rates of generation and 
death, and these means of support, is most obvious and strik¬ 
ing. In a carp of a half pound, Bloch counted 100,000 ova; 
P. Petit calculated 262,284 in another only 14 inches in 
length; and Leuenhoeck found no less than 9,344,000 in a 

* Die. des Sciences Med. art. Population. 


254 


LIFE IN RELATION TO TIME. 


single codfish. Whatever faith we may have in these num¬ 
bers, the fruitfulness of nature is truly marvellous. A few 
of such lives sustained, might people all her starry spheres. 

Accordingly, it is not the general inferiority of female fe¬ 
cundity, but the paucity of food, which constitutes the true 
operative barrier to the great expanding life of the world. 
Food, precious substance! into the presence of which nature 
makes every effort to bring her nascent lives The seeds of 
plants, ova of insects, fishes disperse on the winds and 
waves. Seas, tempests, volcanos,—are her ministers to 
bring her children when born to her festival board. She 
always keeps the flames of life burning, I repeat, fully up to 
the means she has at command. 

Upon this disproportion of food, we may conceive, the 
great life on the earth’s surface, in the revolutions of time, 
must occasionally contract or expand as the alible matters 
are more or less favourably situated for active alimentation; 
and, that, the same localities in different eras, must vary 
greatly in the sort, intensity and amount of vitality they 
nourish. Man, arbiter of his own fortune, holds greatly 
under his control the means of creating subsistence, and mul¬ 
tiplying his numbers. He is active in this resp,ect, pretty 
much in proportion to the varying amount of knowledge he 
may possess. Our great continent expanding from the 
isthmus of Darien to the polar circles, enjoying all the rich¬ 
ness of the sun, accordingly nourished but comparatively a 
very scanty population of the aboriginal people. Depend¬ 
ing chiefly upon the parsimonious gifts of Diana for sub¬ 
sistence, they wandered over its fertile soil covered with 
luxuriant, ever waving verdure and blooming flowers, but 
the light of letters never came to show them the resources 
of aliment they neglected, and speed the multiplication of 
their numbers. This light, mother of the industrious arts, 
came with the people who are their successors to the soil, 
whose actual population, through the development of these 
resources, is advancing with a rapidity unknown to all 
former statistic history. Egypt, Persia, Italy, Phoenicia, 
Greece, Palestine,—countries once overladened with our 


GENERATION. 


255 


race, may be said now to be thinly peopled. Their num¬ 
bers bear no proportion to the flourishing days of their 
ancient governments; while, since the transfer of know¬ 
ledge to the West, many of the states of Europe have more 
than doubled their population. 

Letters offer themselves as an energetic, revolutionary 
power to the multiplication of our species; and in countries 
where their light is kindling or extinguishing, the number 
must vary accordingly. While it is the sinking or upheav¬ 
ing of soils covered by w T ater, droughts, volcanic and deltaic 
action, diluviations of sterile sand,—which offer change in 
respect to food to the numbers of the lower animal and vege¬ 
table species. 

Nature has no fresh aliments with which she relumes the 
life of different ages. Food is a fixed quantity, with which 
she contrives to supply all by pushing it continually round 
the great circle of animation. Thus, from the humble plant 
which drinks the nourishing juices of the soil, she impels it 
upward to the other extremity of the living scale in an eter¬ 
nal circle of action. 

To achieve this rotation, plants are armed against the 
soil; and animals come forth in the panoply of Mars, ready 
for natural warfare, predation and carnage. Their appetites 
are already arranged to urge them on their destiny. 

We may suppose the great chief of one of our western 
Indian tribes had beheld and admired this order of nature 
so obvious, and claimed for himself the honor. In his 
war speech he said, “ I am of no ordinary parentage. The 
oak is my mother, the thunderbolt, my father. When he 
came near her, he leaped from his black couch and broke 
her in pieces, when I came forth an armed warrior as you 
behold me.” 

When we consider the rapidity of vegetable assimilation; 
the promptness with which vegetables are converted into the 
substance of the animal tissues; the facility of the further 
conversion into those of all the carnivorous tribes; the gene¬ 
ral shortness of all lives; the very few that reach natural 
death to again become food, we can form some conception 


256 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


of the velocity with which the organic elements are hurried 
round the living circle. And when we think how fecund is 
death; how inevitable is the destruction and consumption of 
all lives—that in the great living edifice, each organic form 
maintains its place only by destroying those beneath on 
which it rests—that this edifice is composed of perhaps more 
than fifteen millions of these forms, all continually displaced 
by death,—we can appreciate, to some extent, the prodigious 
force of generation, which of itself replaces them all; and 
maintains the building in its original symmetry and beauty 
through the devastating flight of all time. 


CHAPTER VI. . 

GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE OR LIFE IN RELATION TO HABITATION. 

Heat and light are indispensable to the being of all lives. 
The spherical figure of the sun and earth, the earth’s atmo¬ 
spheric envelope, and dip of the Southern pole, make im¬ 
possible their equal distribution over all her surface at the 
same time. From this arrangement nothing can be more 
unequal than the cotemporaneous partition of these impon¬ 
derables so precious. There are the Tropics, the Isothermal 
Lines, and the Polar Circles. Some regions are clothed 
with eternal verdure, blissful seats of the golden age, of the 
reign of Saturn and Ceres; some, with eternal snow. Here 
the earth is an ignited furnace; and the thirsty simoon 
screams for slaking blood ; there Zephyrus nourished in the 
lap of Ausonia fans the cerulean sky; yonder the fierce blast 
sweeps the glacial plane, and howls among the everlasting 
icicles. Here the ravished earth drinks at the sweet foun¬ 
tain of the sun; yonder the indignant snow repels his re¬ 
turning beams, and maintains perpetual winter. 

Thus by connecting heat and light with the dependencies 
of life, it would appear to us blind, that nature had thrown 



GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


257 


up insurmountable obstacles to the establishment of her 
living empire. She has not formed a separate sun to warm 
each climate, and yet she has contrived to people the many 
chambered earth, and give to the foot of generations an equa¬ 
ble tread. How has she triumphed over these obstacles, 
which appear to have arisen from the rigid laws of formation 
she had imposed upon herself, and which we may be per¬ 
mitted to think, from this rigidity, were unavoidable? For, 
had the sun or earth been square or any other than the exist¬ 
ing forms, in the actual constitution of the dynamical forces, 
the earth, in traversing her orbit round him, could not have 
maintained her present type of movement, most conformable, 
as may be considered, to the system of animation. When she 
came near the solar angles, if we suppose any other figure, 
she would have darted toward him, because, in these angles, 
gravitation would have been more intense; and vibrated 
back in passing through the segments of her orbit correspond¬ 
ing to the straight lines, giving to her an elliptico-serpen- 
tine motion. The figures of the celestial bodies are elements 
in their motions; they are equally elements in the motion 
of all lives, in respect to which, we see, they offer hindrances. 

But how have these hindrances been removed, and the 
needed, perpetual warmth compensated, supplied to living 
creatures? The compensation, manifestly, has been wholly 
made on their part, by the supply of an especial heat-making 
function, calorification. This function mainly furnishes in 
all climates the necessary warmth, which mechanical matter 
refuses, making life possible and practicable, nay, existent 
over the earth’s whole vari-tempered surface. In the warm¬ 
blooded of the arctic regions, it kindles a fire compared to 
the ambient, polar ice, more intense than the incandescence 
of the glowdng forge compared to the heat of our temperate 
climates. How wmnderful is this function! which carries 
heat where heat but sparingly ever comes from any other 
quarter; where, in the distance, the affrighted volcano roars 
and belches forth his coward fires; and where the frozen 
light* of fabled Boreas waves its streamy mantle, and flashes 

* Mr. Hood and Dr. Richardson noticed, that while the Aurora Borealis 
22 


258 


geographical life. 


through the icicle-hair of this empire-sovereign of eternal 
frost. 

Since the end of all functions is to organize, or produce 
some change in surrounding bodies foreign to their chemical 
affinities demanded by the conditions of life, had the several 
parts of the earth’s surface been exactly and permanently 
accommodated to the temperature of the creatures which 
were to inhabit them, I cannot see but this function had 

a 

been a superfluity. We have no evidence that heat or¬ 
ganizes, or undergoes any change in its constitution by the 
action of the vital forces. It passes within and out of the 
tissues the same in quality. It appears, therefore, originally 
created exactly accommodated to their modes of existence; 
is essentially nutrified , or, to borrow the expression of the 
electricians, is organic per se; and is, perhaps, the only sub¬ 
stance in nature which is so. Although, therefore, heat 
exists universally in relation to living bodies in the nutrified 
or organic state; yet it is not diffused in proportions suited 
to their various conditions. They consequently require a 
function, in the same sense they do any other, to elaborate 
it from surrounding bodies and concentrate it in themselves 
proportional to their wants. 

The experiments of physiologists, of Crawford especially, 
show that the production of animal. heat is due to the vital 
law T s. Living calorification comprehends every thing in¬ 
cluded under the idea of function. It must be a function, 
although refused to living bodies by so many good phy¬ 
siologists. The dispute can but be verbal. What is called 
the maintenance of temperature, for which the wisdom of 
nature has been so much applauded, includes operations 
both vital and chemical. The experiment of Sir W. Blag- 
den and Fordyce, entering and remaining in a heated oven, 
only shows that great heats will produce great perspirations. 
The cooling by the latter has been well understood since 
Dr. Black, who showed, that caloric is rapidly consumed in 

affected, to some extent, the magnetic needle, its influence on the thermome¬ 
ter was next to nothing. Franklin’s Nar. of a Journey to the Shores of the 
Polar Sea. 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 259 

100 * 

evaporation by entering into the latent state. But the power 
of living bodies to destroy the equilibrium of heat in the 
media where they exist, or of creating temperature for them¬ 
selves, is purely vital. 

The sun is the great calorific functionary of the world. 
The nutritive parenchyma of vital bodies, the instrument of 
the function of temperature, is, therefore, his complement, 
or the fulness of solar pyrogeny. Thus the genial warmth 
which the forms of matter and the determinate conditions 
of motion to which they are subjected, refuse, is supplied 
by a special function; by which every living being becomes 
a calorific focus, and the glacial with the temperate zones, 
are mainly rendered inhabitable. 

In securing habitation for the polar tribes, ancillary to 
this function, nature invokes the chemical agency of the 
bad conductors of heat and colors for clothing. These simply 
economize the living warmth, and show that such creatures 
live little by the heat of the sun. Philosophers, however, 
are wont to admire the white, living robes of these regions, 
as the harmonies of nature. They are rather her indispen¬ 
sable utilities; and show that the Maker of the world was 
the Maker of animals, and knew how to make its philoso¬ 
phy, resources available in their constitutions. But our 
thought is too poor to trace or admire the Divine ingenuity. 

In like manner, we may suppose, had the polity of mate¬ 
rial nature refused an equal distribution of atmospheric air 
over the whole earth, as it has done for the solar effusion, 
we would have found a complementary provision in the 
respiratory organs of all lives to meet the exigence;—and 
under such circumstance, there would have been new organic 
modifications in this respect. 

If calorification produces a change in the state, in which 
heat naturally exists, the tendency of all the functions is to 
effect similar but infinitely greater changes in the states of 
external matter, except that of generation, which is public, 
and more properly belongs to the species. The causes, 
therefore, which distribute lives over continents, seas and 
air, or causes of local inhabitation, are primarily to be sought 


260 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


for in the general and special conditions, and affections of 
the matter of the planet. Philosophers look upon living 
bodies as centres of attraction, foci which continually absorb 
and expel the surrounding bodies. This circle of action 
comprehends all life, all functions. The bodies which are 
absorbed, are animated with forces which constitute all they 
are in their forms and properties. They tend to persevere 
in the states, in which their native forces dispose them. 
They resist this organic absorption. Bat the functions are 
animated with a superior force of attraction, which subdues 
this resistance, and modifies their forms and properties— 
achieves their living state. 

These bodies cannot approach the living forms for their 
absorption, or pulverize, dissolve to accommodate their mode 
of chemification. Where the approach and the hardness 
overcome are needed, they are secured by the bestowment 
of special functions, locomotion, mastication, with the ap¬ 
propriate apparatuses. Thus the situation of the food, and 
its hardness or softness, give of themselves several conforma¬ 
tions to the responding organs, and modify much the external 
contours of creatures. As in the w~aders, Grallse, where the 
organs of approach, I may say, are double, the aliment being 
under water is secured both by the length of the legs and 
neck; in the rhinoceros especially, much of his structure 
looks to the situation of his food, et cet,—Thus we see the 
living forms are not original or arbitrary, but like the func¬ 
tions, arise necessarily or have their reason in the general 
and special conditions and affections of the planetary matter; 
and the functions themselves are to effect, create what this 
matter in itself falls short of actual animation. Nature, I 
may say, has made room in this matter for the living economy; 
and constituted it the varied means of support. If, therefore, 
the means, manner of approach, the surrounding circum¬ 
stances vary, the organs and functions of the creature to 
which it is the means, will vary accordingly. And, if the 
means or the supporters are modified in the extreme, so are 
the living contours. The organs w T ith their functions meet 
and accommodate the exigences, which the supporters offer, 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


261 


as was manifest in the history of vital calorification. If the 
iood be solid, there will be maxillary bones with teeth firmly 
set, and strong masseter muscles to break it in pieces. If 
it be on inaccessible heights, in addition there will be an 
especial organization fitted for climbing; if in the water, air; 
for swimming, flying. If the food be swift-footed, the ani¬ 
mal to which it is the food, will have address or be swift in 
flight to seize its prey. All inhabitableness, consequently, 
is the resources of lives or their organic accommodation to 
the external supporters. 

Not only are the peripheric organs formed in adaptation 
to the conditions, habitudes of external bodies, which consti¬ 
tute a place alone proper for inhabitation, but likewise the 
organs of their interior make. “ La complication de l’appareil 
digestif,” observesTiedemann, “est en rapportintimeavec la 
nature des alimens eux-memes dont V instinct pousse les ani- 
maux a se nourrir.” The nutritive organs, modified in the 
races according to the intensity of vital activity, respond to 
the alible matters; or their surfaces, as Broussais properly 
denominates them, are “ surfaces of relation.” They are 
strictly and directly so. All the parts of animals, except 
the generative, appear formed more or less directly or indi¬ 
rectly for food, protection, defence—for carrying on inter¬ 
course wdth what is exterior to themselves. The faces of 
their structures very generally look outwardly. If the sur¬ 
faces of the digestive system are in relation to external food, 
the bones, muscles and nerves, which are to conduct the 
creature to the table where nature has prepared his repast, 
are not less so. The immediate instrument with which he 
prehends it, must also be in harmony. The food of the 
colossal elephant, for example, is on the ground; his neck is 
too short, but he has a proboscis which will reach it. Many 
of the other phytivora have necks sufficiently long for pre¬ 
hension suspended by a special instrument or the ligamentum 
nachce. The different ways in which the bones are articu¬ 
lated ; the different positions and modifications of the mus¬ 
cles, nerves; the presence, absence, or peculiarity of particu¬ 
lar structures—in.a word—all organic diversity, in the living 

22 * 


262 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


forms—must originate in the peculiarity, diversity of exter¬ 
nal conservation. The forms of matter were first in the 
order of time, are original; and their variety and permanency 
may be regarded, in some sort, as the principal basis of the 
diversity and perpetuity of the living races. 

The different sorts of sense, perception, intelligence, 
hereafter to be noticed, are arranged to the same end as the 
material organization. The goat must have a nice sense of 
locality, to walk on the border of the precipice; the eagle, a 
geometrizing eye, to snatch unhurt the dove from the sharp 
edge of the rock. The senses must protect from hurtful 
contact, discover and distinguish the food— 

Dente lupus, cornu taurus petit; unde nisi, 

Monstratum. 

It was this invariable conformity of the living structures 
with what surrounds—this morphologic harmony of the ani¬ 
mate with the inanimate world—which enabled the sagacious 
Cuvier the first, as I have said, from the inspection of a sin¬ 
gle bone to detect the race to which the creature belonged, 

55 55 7 

decide upon its instincts, its food, mode and habits of life, 
and place of local habitation. Each separate part of any 
animal is the compendium of the whole—is the thread which 
conducts through the Daedalian labyrinth of animality. The 
form of the bone, the manner, circumstances of its articula¬ 
tion, will indicate the form of the teeth, and the other struc¬ 
tures with which it had been connected; and vice versa. 

If, therefore, it be dug from the travertin of Ischia, the 
Phlegrsean Fields, the oolite formation, or the clays of the 
London or Paris basin, it will be an element from which 
scientific anatomy may remodel the complete organization 
as it existed in its own epoch. 

Accordingly, inhabitation can neither be arbitrary nor acci¬ 
dental, but like the different composing structures, is pecu¬ 
liar, and forms a sort of ingredient in all lives. Nature, as 
I may say, has finished the earth upon a vast, most magni¬ 
ficent model. She has upheaved some portions of its sur¬ 
face to the regions of cold, where the eternal snow glitters 
under the vertical sun; others she has depressed as far be- 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


263 


neath to form basins to lodge her sea-waters; the continents 
are arranged cutting the polar axis at obtuse angles; and 
the whole enveloped in a light ocean of air. In this arrange¬ 
ment, without any addition of material, she has contrived to 
augment prodigiously the geometrical surface. Her plea¬ 
sure is in life; she delights manifestly in its abundance; 
has peopled the whole. Yet but one sort of animation can 
subsist in one sort of place. She triumphs over the diffi¬ 
culty in unfolding a chain of living beings. She adds link 
to link; modifies organization and its properties until the 
world with its many phases can respond and administer to 
appropriate life—until all from the depths of the watery to 
the top of the great aerial sea become 

Intus aquae dulces, vivoque sedilia saxo; 

Nympharum domus:—deserta ferarumqu’ 

Sedes hominum jucundae. 

In fitting up habitation, nature’s reliance, as we have seen, 
is in the power and virtue of organization. If heat exists 
essentially in the vital or organic state, the other alible 
matters are not so. If she originates a function to regulate 
the quantities of the one, which needs no assimilation, she 
brings forward an array of functions to spoil the forms of 
the other, clothe them with new properties, quality—sub¬ 
ject them to organification—against which the original or 
native forces rebel. So that in all her habitable regions, the 
sheer earth, there is nothing but needs alteration, prepara¬ 
tion, that there may be life. The power, virtue of functions, 
organization, are necessarily her reliance, to furnish which 
with aids, she appears to have exerted all her force and skill. 

These aids are very principally secured in the arrange¬ 
ment of continents and seas; and, in the resources of the 
pneumatic and hydrostatical laws. The sea-water in the . 
thermal zones becoming warm and lighter, is constantly 
displaced by the cold and heavier waters of the polar seas. 
The warm water passes to the frozen regions, animating 
and maintaining life there, which seldom feels original heat 
from the sun. By this law the icy waters from the two polar 
circles constantly flow toward the equator, and force the 


264 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


warm water toward the poles, forming in all seas great cur¬ 
rents, as the Gulf Stream, Mosambique Channel, &c. By 
this constant shifting, circulation of the Oceanic waters, the 
solar warmth is carried to those regions, which without 
could never be the habitations of life. 

The hydrographical distribution exactly favors this cir¬ 
culation. The two polar seas are connected by the Oceans, 
which run obliquely across to separate the continents, afford¬ 
ing free access to the equatorial districts. The continents 
cut the polar axis, as above, at very obtuse angles from S. 
West to N. East, which again favors this circular move¬ 
ment. This direction of the coast lines obviously turns the 
momentum of the waters, occasioned by the earth’s diurnal 
rotation, to the advantage of such motion. 

In the same manner, by a law similar in its operation, 
the heated air of the Tropics is made to distribute warmth 
through the colder regions of the earth. It is probable, too, 
the friction of water in the sea-basins, and of winds over 
continents, excite caloric, the electric, galvanic imponder¬ 
able, which help out the heat-making function; and thus, 
in the hands of all-provident nature, administer to habitation 
and life, where cold is the opposing obstacle. 

Solar heat, inestimable nature! appears to be used spar¬ 
ingly, economized in all the operations of our sublunary eco¬ 
nomy. There is but one exception remembered.—The ice 
and snow on mountains and Arctic lands, reflect, and waste 
it. The balance of the sun’s rays, w T hich fall on all other 
surfaces, is treasured up to be w r afted and distributed by 
winds and waves to those spots, where he himself cannot 
send them—where the seats of life cheerless, would be more 
cheerless without them. So closely are all living functions 
. connected in dependence with heat, that all the resources of 
the latter appear to be rallied, as we see, in supporting hy¬ 
perborean life, which is still very scant compared with that 
of the thermal zones. The rigidity of this connection is so 
great, persevering, that naturalists have been led to consider 
certain races as made especially for and constitution all v 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


265 


adapted to certain climates or ranges of temperature, out of 
which they cannot live or reach natural perfection. 

Sir II. Home carried his notions of climatology so far as 
to conceive, at the defeat and confusion of Babel, the human 
constitution, since all men at first were of one flesh, was so 
thoroughly changed and remodeled in order to accommodate 
the different climates, that, if originally they had been cre¬ 
ated distinct species, they could not resemble one another 
less.* They were virtually made according to him distinct 
species by this change. His respect for the authority of the 
most ancient and sacred writings, induced him to adopt this 
view of the subject in preference to that, to which his ob¬ 
servations and reasonings conducted him — the different 
creations of men. 

Plants and animals are found, and will flourish only in 
certain latitudes. This fact is sufficient evidence of original 
or factitious formation in relation to temperature or climate. 
It is not less true, that they will only live, and enjoy the 
vigor of their faculties on certain kinds of food. They were 
formed in relation to food, toward which the faces, as we 
have noticed, of so many of their organs look; and likewise 
to shelter, defence—local habitation—and to one another, 
which take up and employ the balance of their individual 
structures. They demand precise, definite conditions in 
nature, for the eclosion and enjoyment of their being. If all 
their organs and functions are special, this speciality is not 
single; it looks to a speciality in what surrounds. So true 
is this, that the organic and inorganic forms of nature exist 
in indissoluble union in our minds. Could the voyager of 
our star penetrate the alentours of another sphere, and were 
he to behold there but a fin, a feather , he would conclude 
upon the existence of waves and winds there. 

The varied organizations of the living chain can but be 
so many schedules of the laws, the hidden nature of matter; 
and, could they be deciphered, the true interpreters of its 
qualities and properties. They are nature’s hieroglyphical 
hand-writing concerning it. Could the world it forms in 

* Sketches of the History of Man. 


266 


GEOGRAPHICAL LIFE. 


space disappear, and be forgotten, and living nature remain 
alone, this nature investigated with the induction of Harvey 
on the way to the knowledge of the circulation, would con¬ 
duct to the discovery, that, at some passed epoch, such a 
world had really existed. The eye with all its structures 
would still look toward the hollow vacuum the sun had left; 
the feet would point to coaptating surfaces; the pulmonary 
air-cells, form and mechanism of the chest, and of the ear, 
to an external tenuous fluid; the teeth, like the x of algebra, 
to unknown solidity; the skin, with its papillae, to external 
contact and sensation; the valves of the ascending venous 
trunks, would be enduring monuments of the passed exist¬ 
ence of gravitation:—Each living structure would be a 
tombstone to furnish some recollection to perpetuate the 
perished forms of matter; and, as often as they are repeated 
along the living series, they would afford fresh, accumu¬ 
lating evidence, that such forms, and such a world had once 
existed. 

In contemplating life in relation to circumscribed abodes, 
or nature distributing out her territories to her children, a 
subject so fecund in reflection, we see, that facts are every¬ 
where united with facts, reason with reason, truth with 
truth, presenting science the prospect of an endless flight. 
What can we conclude, but that all once existed in the 
solitude of the Sovereign Reason; was one there, came forth 
and exists one; and that the universe, many to us, is but the 
same vari-colored robe which obscures His insufferable bright¬ 
ness, amid which we ever desire to plunge? 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


267 


CHAPTER VII. 

LIVING MECHANICS. 

In the preceding chapter, I noticed the analogy between 
the special structures that compose the organic system of 
any life, and the external forms of matter, as the condition 
of inhabitation. So strikingly and obviously do these forms 
impress, mark the animated series, that characteristics de¬ 
rived from them, as well as structural peculiarity itself, con¬ 
stitute the basis of zoological nomenclature and classification, 
Animals are terrestrial, paludal, fluviatic, aquatic, amphibious 
—the same may be said of plants. 

We saw that any distinct organ in any living form, accom¬ 
modated directly or remotely in its function, some property, 
condition of the external world. What are we to conclude, 
organization being the only mode of vital manifestation, but 
that the direction, laws of organic attraction, like those of 
the stellary and molecular forces, must have been originally 
impressed by the Supreme Reason, and that by virtue of such 
impression, the functions thus respond to the external sup¬ 
porters, and thereby become useful in their own economy ? 
And if we behold some of the living parts, as the spleen of 
the mammalia, of which we cannot appreciate the utility, 
it is simply proof, some portions of the path of knowledge 
remain to be explored. 

Each separate organ, then, enjoys two distinct relations; 
the one with its fellows, the other, with what is exterior. In 
the present chapter, I am to consider the system of forces 
and movements, which put living creatures in the latter 
relation; or by which they are enabled to enjoy the benefits 
arising from structural adaptation to habitation. 

Generation, growth and decay, are action. Each distinct 
organ does something distinctly, enjoys a mode of motion, 
comprehended by Blumenbach under a “ special force of 
life” Mastication, insalivation, deglutition, stomachic, duo- 


268 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


denal digestion, chylous absorption, hsematosis, final assimi¬ 
lation to the specific tissues, are but the action of prehension 
continued. The synchronous disintegration of the organism 
by absorptions, which restores the bodies prehended back 
whence they came,, is still the same action progressing. So 
that if each modal structure has a motion proper to it, each 
organic element dances in a continuity of progressive move¬ 
ment from prehension to vital elimination. The motion 
begins with, and terminates in what is exterior. Or the 
alible matters drawn into the living vortex, after having un¬ 
dergone the identifying changes demanded by each organ, 
pass off by a centrifugal movement. 

We know the absolute dependence, subordination of voli¬ 
tion of all living motive power, on assimilation. “ L’ excitabi¬ 
litie,” observes Tiedemann, “est communiquee par V activite 
formatricedes organismes generateurs ala matiere plastique 
des germes, avec la propriete de prendre forme sous certaines 
influences exterieures. L’ excitabilitie des organismes et de 
toutesleurs parties ne subsiste qif autant qu’ ils sont nour- 
ris. Toutes les influences qui changent V etat de la nutrition 
en general ou dans quelque partie apportent aussi du chang e- 
rrient dans leur excitation. Un changement d’ excitabilitie 
accompagne ceux qui ont lien dans f etat de la nutrition du 
corps entier et de ses parties pendant le developpement des 
divers corps vivans et durant les periodes de leur vie. Tou¬ 
tes les influences qui arretent la nutrition et aneantissent la 
force de formation ou de nutrition detruisent 1’ excitabilitie.”* 
If the vital motion originates in assimilation or its cause, it 
is in the voluntary acts it curves round to form or complete 
the circle; since, to the series they form, appertain the pre¬ 
hension of the alimentary substances. 

The light does not shine equally bright on every part of 
this circle. We do not see the connection between the con¬ 
version of foreign bodies into the animal tissues, and the 
mind exciting movements in the muscular apparatuses. The 
mechanism, by which matter digescent enables the mind to 
excite motions in matter digested, or the muscular substance, 

* Traite complet de phys. de 1’ homme, part ii. p. 757. 




LIVING MECHANICS. 269 

is veiled in original creation. Nevertheless, from observa¬ 
tion such is the order of nature; such connection really exists 
an insolvable fact. 

The organs very generally combine to form apparatuses. 
Their functions group with them. The brain, lungs and 
heart, in the more perfect races, hold mainly the economy 
under immediate dependence. Movements begun in any 
organ never terminate in that organ, but always beyond. 
They are endless in their sequences. From the nutritive 
aperture to the extremity of the chyliferous vessels, for illus¬ 
tration, we may observe the number of organs, and the 
variety of actions or functions. The trituration by the teeth 
is purely mechanical; the changes effected by the salivary, 
bucal, gastric, pancreatic, and biliary secretions, are each 
molecular; the absorption of the chyle, its motion toward the 
heart in the lacteals, are separate phenomena. It appears 
to cost the economy many efforts, much labor to identify 
foreign bodies. It unites, multiplies force upon force to over¬ 
come the forces of the external world, which evinces its own 
comparative weakness. 

But where is the fountain, whence flow these motions, 
which animate every living fibre, every atom ? Volition— 
all vital motion—we see, is put in evidence by the action of 
the original power of life imparted to the germ, on foreign 
alimentary bodies, or by their identification with the living 
liquids and solids. It is a phenomenon of this formative 
power. Research carried thus far, circumscribes all valua¬ 
ble ends, since it is not the nature of beings themselves, but 
their phenomena, and the subordinating laws, which consti¬ 
tute the materials of all just scientification. But philoso¬ 
phers have not been content with beholding the living move¬ 
ments thus in natu , and have attempted to soar with them 
to a higher, more recondite origin 




23 


270 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


SECTION I. 

SYNOPSIS OF THE VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY ON THE CAUSE OF LIVING 

MOTION. 

Because motion in its nature is incomprehensible, Zeno, 
Cronus, a host of philosophers have denied its existence. 
“ If motion exist in a body,” says the latter, “ it must either 
move in the place where it is, or where it is not, which is 
impossible.” Borelli, Keill, Young, respond, “it is the 
change or successive passage of a body from place to place.” 
The principles of the moderns are demonstrated in a thou¬ 
sand works. 

Mankind have had no difficulty; they intuitively believe 
in the existence of motion. The mind in its rude state, the 
unlettered of all nations and ages, have considered the Sove¬ 
reign Will, as the sufficient reason of all the revolutions and 
movements in the wmrld ; and, consequently, the cause of all 
human actions as of being. This generalization of all 
motions, mutations, events—this absorption of all physical 
phenomena into one great solitary idea—was the philosophy, 
if I may so call it, of the first men; it will be that of the 
last rude age which will come. 

If we examine the written tablet of human thought, we 
shall behold philosophy, religion and medicine indissolubly 
united. This union is natural. The knowledge of cause 
and effect is philosophy. The elevated rank, ineffable na¬ 
ture of the highest Cause would command the admiration, 
and worship of men, which is religion. The consciousness 
that this Cause is intelligent, and holds under control the 
destinies of mankind and of the world, would be sufficient 
to induce them to look to It for aid in the seasons of sickness 
and distress. Accordingly the ministers of the sacred altar 
were the ministers of medicine. 

This tablet shedding its light on the gloom of antiquity, 
part colored by the darkness of time and of fable, part white 
with modern light, shows, that Asia, where human contem¬ 
plation was aided from above, first reduced this cause to form. 


VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY. 


271 


That this form was early carried into Egypt, where it was 
remodeled, and diversified to suit the genius, circumstances, 
and wants of the people: And that all the gods or their 
prototypes, who have been worshiped by civilized men, came 
originally from the older states of Asia or Egypt.* 

The ancient Israelites, Chinese, Indians, Arabians, Per¬ 
sians, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks, and Romans, rendered 
homage to the gods of their ancestors with full confidence; 
attributed the whole course of nature, all events immediately 
to their will; and regarded all research for any other causes 
as superfluous and offensive.! As yet reflection, I may say, 
had but few wants. Men, by considering all effects as the 
acts of their Creator, lived perpetually in his presence, which 
stimulated their piety, and gave ardor to their devotions. 

To the eyes of ancient Palestine, He was visible only in 
his acts. His throne was attended by the Seraphim and 
Cherubim ; and “ clouds and darkness hung round about.” 
Plato, contemplating the mechanical soul of the world, ele¬ 
vated his vision above the clouds of speculation, which hung 
over Greece; and reached the pure idea of his ancient 
fathers. “ Beyond the firmament,” as it may be translated, 
“in the superior regions of eternal light, the first and most 
perfect of spirits dwells in unchangeable tranquillity. He 
lives the supreme and eternal Intelligence, who created the 
universe after his own image, ineffable model of order, beauty, 
perfection and reality.”! 

The author of our being, in the cool of the day, frequented 
the garden of Eden, and gave oral instruction to the first 
father of men. What has banished this idea simple as beau¬ 
tiful of his personal presence, and society, and exiled Him 
on foreign shores? this idea, instruction long remembered 
and cherished by the early fathers of human kind, of nations. 
For many long ages now we have reached Him only by 
travelling through a vast distance of rugged thought; our 

* Vid. Chapter 2d of this work. 

t Vid. Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, torn, i, p. 215. 

± Phaedron, p. 204. Nothing, however, but Plato’s language can truly 
speak Plato. 


272 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


theologies fatigue reflection: we reach Him exhausted. His 
idea once so easy of access, demands the utmost labor since 
men have become wiser. But what has overthrown this 
plain and easy philosophy once universally popular and 
accredited, which delighted to regard all the operations of 
nature as the expressions of his will? The record of in¬ 
evitable events show, that many causes operated. After the 
destruction by water and the repopulation of the world, 
barbarism long continued. In progressive time, the light 
of research began to break forth in the early peopled parts 
of Asia, and in Egypt. Countries became worth fighting 
for. The busy power of w T ar, progress of knowledge, arts, 
commerce, intercourse of nations, diffusion of languages— 
the thousand external circumstances, which ever modify 
the aspect and fortunes of our species, gradually changed 
the original manners and habits of the people. The old 
gods and the simple religion of the first men no longer suited 
the wants, the public taste and the genius of nations. They 
fell gradually into disuse, the ancient religion of Palestine 
with a few exceptions surviving the wreck of all others. 

But the new gods, as w T e have seen, were not original 
models. The copy brought from Palestine, and the early 
modifications in Egypt, contained all the mother-ideas of 
the new divinification. 

The beginnings of knowledge, the philosophical notions 
scattered abroad in the countries, which had originated them, 
had never been collected together in form. The glory of 
doing this w~as reserved for the Greeks. They w T ere de¬ 
scended from the Caucasian, the imperial branch of the 
human race. Their country extending far out into the sea 
by its numerous promontories, against which the waves 
ever raged and foamed, inspired sublime emotions. Ani¬ 
mated, in the opinion of Sprengel with whom all historians 
accord, by the bold outline of their Arcadian mountains, the 
picturesque scenery of their habitations, and the cerulean 
tints of the sky, which covered them, they conceived the 
most ardent love of knowdedge. It was not without reason, 
the Muses were born on the tops of their mountains in place 


VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY. 


273 


of elsewhere, that Olympus’ top sparkled with ambrosia, 
and A polio’s lyre was heard there. They felt and personi¬ 
fied the impetuous force of inspiration without. Nature had 
formed their country for the heart, for energetic, elevated 
contemplation. Their country was formed for them and 
they for their country; happy union. They honored virtue; 
raised altars to Misericordia, felt all that was beautiful in 
the heart, noble in thought, grand in imagination, of which 
they have left eternal monuments. To strengthen the ties 
of government, for the dispersion of general intelligence and 
promotion of piety, they instituted stated games and sacred 
festivals. They presented the world with the flower of 
patriotism and humanity. It was the stimulus of such noble 
sentiments, that caused Alexandre, in accordance with the 
public wishes, to recall the exiles whom Nicanor had 
banished to be present at the country’s games, and the 
Spartans, to grant an armistice of forty days to the Mes- 
senians, to celebrate the approaching festival of Hyacinthia. 

If they carried the love of country, philanthropy beyond all 
former limits, they excelled all other people, according to M. 
Le Clerc,* in the ardor and constancy of their religious devo¬ 
tions. Among such a people, in such a country, knowledge 
could but be an urgent want. Stimulated by this want, they 
travelled into all countries, where there w r as any hope of gra¬ 
tifying it; and collected together for the first time into a 
body the sparse and feeble rays of light, which incipient 
science had shed on the wmrld. Fecundated by this light, 
they subjected the phenomena and order of the universe to 
a more rigid examination; perfected their language, in 
which philosophy and the Muses could articulate; which 
became at once the vehicle of all arts and knowledge, and 
the sacred depository of the truth of Heaven, to all future 
generations. This examination conducted to a deeper in¬ 
sight into the hidden relation of things—to the discovery, 
that matter is manifestly animated by forces inherent in 
itself, forces, which are the immediate causes of all its ope¬ 
rations, effects. 

* The religion of the ancient Greeks. 

23* 


\ 


274 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


Tims, the research of reason established intermediate 
principles, to which all the phenomena of natural beings 
are to be directly referred —discovered that the universe is 
mechanical , and placed its action on new foundations! These 
principles in the new philosophy took the place of the Divine 
Will in the old, and elevated It to a more isolated, exalted 
station. Nature since in the eyes of enlightened men has 
been guided on her course by secondary causes, over which 
He, in sublime, unapproachable solitude, holds the sovereign 
control. 

Accordingly, if a few patterns of the I>ivine Nature 
served for the formation of all the objects of worship of all 
early enlightened people, a few ideas descended from anti¬ 
quity have formed the basis since of all philosophical sys¬ 
tems. These ideas are those of elements , atoms , monads, 
?vogpuw 0660V, numbers, ttvevpa, e^n'ov, et cet. They are all either 
the primordial principles out of which the world was formed, 
to which its phenomena relate; or powers created expressly 
for the administration of its government. These principles 
connect all the parts together, co-ordinate their efforts, direct 
in their mechanical action, and produce such forms, proper¬ 
ties, qualities, effects, and revolutions, as the eternal Mind 
ordains, who holds empire in them, and rules absolutely the 
universal whole. 

—interventional between what is physical, and what 
is divine, is immediately subordinate to the Sovereign Will, 
the highest of natural causes, and achieves, as inti m a ted, 
certain effects and revolutions in the world in accordance 
with It. 

Much perplexity, difficulty exist among the commen¬ 
tators about the true meaning of this term as used by 
the Father of Medicine at Cos. Galen understands it to 
be some peculiar constitution of the atmosphere, or cause 
which modifies its states. Fabricus, Pichler, Schulze, God- 
efroy,—adopt the same opinion.f Fernel, Gorracus, Val- 
leriola interpret it to be a cause, which acts on the whole 

* Vid. the meaning of this word at p. 110 of this work. 

t See this term in the Die. des Sci. Med. 


VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY. 


275 


substance of the human body, and infects it with “ superna¬ 
tural venom'’ in murderous epidemics. With Mercurialis, 
“ it is the influence of the stars upon the atmosphere.” 
Foesius takes it to be a figurative expression of a natural 
cause, and means the same as Homer, when he attributed 
to the arrows of Apollo the plague, which devastated the 
Grecian army before the walls of Pergama — by arrows 
representing the burning rays of the sun producing putre¬ 
faction and contagion. Ranchin, and Prosper Martianus 
recognize it to mean the empire of Demons over our bodies. 
According to Sebiz, Jordan, “ it is what is concealed from 
all sense and reason.” Le Clerc, Schmidt, Wolfg, give other 
discrepant opinions. 

dt^bv — Heat, pure fire , caloricity. There can be no diffi¬ 
culty in understanding the true meaning of this term of the 
ancient philosophy, as an intermediate and governing cause 
in nature. 

In combination with light, heat is darted by the orb of 
day throughout, and beyond the sphere of the great solar 
movement. Orpheus* made light the first principle, and 
ruling cause of all things; Milton in imitation, the earliest 
or first product of nature— 

“ Hail, holy light, offspring of Heaven first born—” 


The solar fluid, busy, energetic power, agent of worlds, 
in ours holds under its immediate dependence, a prodigious 
amount of phenomena and their causes. So great is its 
energy, and obviously striking its influences, little as they 
were known to them, that the sages of antiquity, as I have 
already noticed, regarded the celestial bodies, whence it 
comes, as the sources of all life, existence. By Hippocrates 
and his early imitators, we know, that ds^bv, by which can 
only be meant an emanation from the sun, or a similar nature, 
was considered as the principle of intelligence, and the or¬ 
ganizing cause in the animate creation. M. Yirey, in his 
elegant way, calls the sun “ the star of life as of day.” The 
imponderable biotic of the German medical neology, may I 

remark, can differ but little from the e^ubv of Hippocrates; 

♦ 

* Verses. 


276 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


and must look to the sun as the great store-house, and gal¬ 
vanizing oman of the world. 

Numbers .—Numbers figure in the early history of philoso¬ 
phy. Their introduction is attributed to Pythagoras. In 
the opinion of some theologians, frequent allusion is made 
to them in the sacred writings, particularly to the numbers 
seven and twelve. Clemens can see in this philosopher the 
prints of the ideas of the Hebrew legislator; and Gale quotes 
many of the fathers to show, but without any proof, that 
Moses was his philosophical prototype. What appears, how¬ 
ever, to be certain, is, that Pythagoras studied many centu¬ 
ries afterwards in Egypt, where this great theosoph and pro¬ 
phet himself had been educated, and where numbers in a 
mystic or hieroglyphic sense were taught. 

Amidst uncertainty as to the use, it is probable Pythago¬ 
ras represented by numbers, as the exponents of unknown 
quantities, the Creator and first principles or elements of the 
world. By the number one, he symbolized, that the uni¬ 
verse had a solitary origin, which is the first and highest, 
the eternal One or Monad. According to the explanation 
of Sprengel, the primordial Pythagorian matter, is to be con¬ 
sidered indeterminate, and receives existence only by the 
addition of definitive and active principles. There exists 
nothing, which can better be compared than numbers to the 
indeterminate mass, as well as to the principles, which class 
and define them.* 

Sprengel, therefore, who allows great weight of authority 
to Aristotle in this matter, and but little to Sextus Empiri¬ 
cus, does not understand the sage of Samos to mean by num¬ 
bers the elements and active principles of things themselves, 
but only the means, by which they may be symbolized, ap¬ 
preciated, and reduced to comprehension. The mystical 
powers of numbers, which determine all the changes and 
operations in the universe, he regards as false Pythagorism, 
introduced afterwards by Moderatus and Nichomachus. 

The cabalistic knowledge of numbers appears to have 
early been introduced into the Chinese empire, contained 

* Hist, de la Med., tom. i. p. 230. 


VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY. 


277 


in the book of the Y-king or Shu-king attributed by some 
to Con-fus-te. The account contained in this book, according 
to the notice of Yon Muller,* * * § favors most the explanation of 
the use I have first given, and accords but little with Spren- 
gel and Aristotle. 

Mystic numbers immortal in the hands of Pythagoras, as 
the instruments of thought, offered the first explanation, the 
human mind ever attempted, of the origin of all bodies" from 
elements, and established distinctions between the operations, 
being of the world, and the Divine Author. 

With the first sages, he considered fire, the cause of heat, 
as the only source of all the activity, which reigns in the 
universe. The cause of organization and life resides in heat; 
the principle of movements or power of living mechanics, in 
the soul. The soul is of an setherial, or airy constitution; 
and emanates to every order of life from the universal soul 
of the world—the eternal fire, which overpowers all vision 
seated unapproachably in the Empyrean. 

With Pythagoras, all the philosophers of antiquity taught 
the formation of the world from incipient matter, matter 
unformed, chaos, corpuscles or atoms. They differed much 
as regards the manner of their existence, and transition to 
the cosmic forms. They looked upon fire f as nature’s great 
active force, as well as the vehicle of the principle of all 
animation; and a subtle, igneous vapour, thin air, or pneuma, 
as the immediate cause of all vital activity. 

Homeomeries .%—In the theory of homeomeries invented by 
Anaxagoras of Clazornena, the first pagan vindicator of the 
immortality of the soul, the motions of the living economy, 
the same as Pythagoras, are attributed to aether or air.§> 


*Univer. Hist. 

f The inspired prophets call God “ct consuming fire” It happens the 
metonymy of these prophets is the true substance of the Pythagorian Di¬ 
vinity. 

X There can exist little doubt, but this homeomeric theory is the venerable 
source, whence have flowed the attractions of opposite tendencies of our 
modern science. 

§ With some other of our learned moderns, Bosrhaave, in the supposed 


278 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


This celebrated theory formed to explore the origin of the 
universe, contemplates the eternal spirit bringing into union 
the atoms of similar natures, at the moment, when the radi¬ 
ant spheres first mounted into the vault of night to chase the 
Erebic shadows. They fly on springs of fire, but living 
bodies are animated with winged breath. O beautiful light 
of Anaxagoras! which put to flight the eternal shades, ima¬ 
ges of death, which preexisted the movement of creation. 
This winged breath, this pneuma impressed on the original 
of our species at the hour of his formation, essence of all vital 
motions, Heraclides derived from the evaporation of fire; and 
with Democritus, considered it identical with air. Con¬ 
signing to Genii, as divine agents, the immediate production 
of the material forms, as well as those of all lives from poly- 
angular atoms,* these atoms, the work of the Divinity, Plato 
maintained, that all the acts of living creatures are due to a 
subtle spirit or sether. This sether exists in the ambient 
atmosphere, is absorbed, and conducted by appropriate ves¬ 
sels to the heart, which it animates with motion. 

The ancient poets and philosophers regarded Iao, Iatreus, 
Jove, in some manner, as having always existed without 
beginning. He is the father of gods and men—of all things. 
The pneuma or soul is an emanation of his divine substance. 
The atmosphere everywhere diffused, is the emblem of his 
manner of existence, since, like it, he is in all places at the 
same time. Thus Maro—Jovis omnia 'plena .f From the 
manner in which Theocritus limits the flight of the Muse, 
we are to infer, that all things terminate in him as they are 
derived from him—** Ai6? x aux —He is 

the animating principle, the universal soul of the world— 
Jupiter et Iceto descendet plurimus imbri. And again— 

Turn pater ornnipotens fcecundis imbribus aether 
Conjugis in grernium laetae descendet et omnes 
Magnus alit magno commixtus corpore foetus.§ 

preternatural spiritualization of his understanding by abstinence, drank deeply 
into this Grecian idea. 

* Tiraaeus, p. 478. 
t Idyl. 17. 1. 


t Bucolica 3. 60. 

§ Georgica 2. 325. 


VIEWS OF ANTIQUITY". 


279 


In this passage we see, that sether or air, mixed with her 
great body nourishes all the offspring of the earth, here styled 
conjugis , because they are from legitimate union, is identified 
as being the Omnipotent Father himself. 

This physiological doctrine of Plato, that the soul or sether, 
which governs the body, is absorbed from the surrounding 
air, through which the universal soul is diffused, is so often 
expressed, or allusions made directly to it in the writings of 
the ancients, we cannot doubt, but it was the doctrine gene¬ 
rally accredited, and entertained among all, who made any 
pretensions to learning. 

Jupiter originated life, but Phoebus or Sol, his son, whom 
Latona with Diana, uno partu , bore to him, was its glory, 
and accordingly was styled $ao $ j3 m. Since he invented the 
healing art, this title probably was not altogether bestowed 
upon him because of his vivifying rays; but because he was 
the fire itself which organizes the body, as held by the reign¬ 
ing philosophy of the time. 

But to pursue this inquiry further, would be dispropor- 
tional to the limits of our work. What have we learned, 
precised in relation to the immediate causation of the living 
movements? A primeval, eternal Fire dwelling above in 
the unapproachable sojourn of the empyrseum, originated 
the universe. Its magnificent forms were not the first 
efforts of this ineffable fire. They are the offspring of 
intermediate natures, which form universal union, and 
subordinate all to the empire of the empyrean Tabernacle. 
Fire reigns in nature the cause of all material motions. In 
it exists the cause of all organization. From it is exhaled 
the principle, which impresses the totality of the living acts. 

We have advanced but a single step—that of intermedi¬ 
ate or secondary causes, which distinguish between what 
was original, and what had a beginning. And when we 
have made this step, we reach the boundary of instruction 
antiquity has left us. For all they have said about the 
mechanism of the spirit of air or pneuma, its transition to 
the heart, fermentation in the blood and other humors, is 
unanatomical, and discountenanced by our modern sciences. 


280 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


The air itself is one of the dependences of all vital activity; 
and most if not all the molecular changes in the states of its 
oxygen, are attended by the evolution of sensible heat. But 
in the absence, night of chemical knowledge, they were mis¬ 
led. Besides wrong theory, one of their greatest errors was 
the admission of only one immediate cause of excitement, 
the soul or will. They could not, however, have done other¬ 
wise, without breaking down all systems, which time alone 
destroys. For the souls of all lives being the compendious 
substance of the Divinity, it w 7 as reasonable they should 
participate in the universal government, and rule the organ¬ 
ized body, the microcosm. 

Flow slow and crooked is the motion of thought, as it 
winds through ages in the pursuit of truth and science! 
And how strange —res mutatce cum temporibus mutatis — 
the philosophy w~e cherish, which investigates the causes of 
separate phenomena, would have been esteemed impiety and 
blasphemy in the age when men knew only but one cause 
for these phenomena. 

Approximations have been made, and truth placed on 
narrower ground. 


SECTION II. 

GENERAL IDEA OF MOVEMENTS. 

% - ^ * 

> * 

Let ns conceive a number of series of actors associated 
or placed in the sphere of one another's influence, each actor 
endowed with the ability of originating and suspending mo¬ 
tion at pleasure or of itself. 

1 . In this case, each might commence its effort at the 
same moment, and, if they be equal in pow r er, the movement 
continue without passing beyond the source whence it ema¬ 
nates. The effort of each like its actor would be dissociable, 
individual; and the movement of the whole a perfect dis¬ 
cord. For to admit the contrary, would be to admit, that 
the same motion can pass in different directions at the same 
time. 

2 . The first of the series commences effort; the balance 


THE INCITANTS. 


231 


% 




are at rest. The motion progresses downward, but some 
one ot the series, by virtue of its innate mobility, begins to 
act; the consecutive motion reaching it, will be arrested; 
and the two parts of the series be animated with independ¬ 
ent, discordant movements. Neither of these two forms of 
motion uncosmic , exists in nature. 

3. Contrarily to this position, the actors enjoy simply 
mobility, and of themselves would never produce any of the 
phenomena of motion. All efforts are in mutual dependence. 
In such a constitution of forces, any movement impressed, 
begun at any one point of the series, might pass to any other 
point; from a solitary effort, myriads of others might arise 
without any addition of power—condition of the universal 
equality of action and reaction. 

This is the great model of the universe, the eternal circle 
of motion of Empedocles, in which the energies of all visible 
created beings are engaged, which evolves their phenomena, 
measures out their duration, and assigns them their limits. 
Although the corporeal and vital movements differ in the 
extreme, they are both in mutual dependence, consecutive, 
and the model, the same. And, if the attractions of body 
impel on the routes of space, and the molecules, through the 
changes of form, the sole attraction of the organic plastic 
nature gives the impulse to all lives through all duration. 


SECTION III. 

j L , - . j l 

APPRECIATION OF THE STIMULI OR INCITANTS. 

Motion, which among the Scholastics was the object of 
furious discussion and controversy, that uselessly wasted 
centuries, in its nature is unknown. There is no being in 
the universe exempt from its laws. In it, all ceaselessly 
advance forward to a destiny concealed in the night of 
futurity. All changes in the qualities, properties—phe¬ 
nomena—of beings are inconceivable without motion. So 
oreat is the value of its knowledge, that Aristotle said, 
“ motion being unknown , nature would continue unknown 
24 


282 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


The immediate causes of the living motions are termed 
stimuli. All the living parts through their functions excite 
one another, as in the synergies and sympathies of health 
and disease, and are true stimuli. The mind by the will, 
by all its sentiments, as I have faintly sketched in a former 
part of this work, acts on the organism, and is likewise its 
stimulator. All the forms of matter in the universe foreign 
to the organs themselves, are capable of producing changes 
in them, are their incitants. All oral and written language; 
arts, science, history, literature, philosophy,—gain access 
through the mind and modify the living action. The theo- 
sophs extend the operative sphere of inciting power to man 
to still greater limits. The world does not contain all the 
agents which can stimulate his living functions. He is 
susceptible of excitement from a higher source. An action 
comes from the Divinity and touches him—stimulates him 
to the purification of the heart, to the rectification, “ newness 
of life;” and to the “blessed hope” of a perfectly sorrowless, 
happy futurity. From how many quarters, from what di¬ 
versity of beings, things, do the excitements come which 
are the true living functions? How can I appreciate them? 
the field of these stimuli is every way boundless! Man is 
both the compendium and the flower of the world. The 
magnificence, charm of a perpetual life allure him; the 
beauty, splendor, glory of heaven attract him; the shades 
of Rhadamanthus affright, repel him; the stars stimulate his 
vision, and invite him to come up in thought, and converse 
with their great order; the earth stimulates his active, ali¬ 
mentary life. How tactile the mechanism of his life to 
respond to all these stimulators ! 

Since animals need the continual intercourse, support of 
their world, the will, which administers this support or 
achieves the external relations demanded by the conditions 
of their being, among the stimulators, occupies the first rank. 
Accordingly, a certain portion of their structures is subjected 
to its action, and constitutes its empire. We have just seen 
the ancients made the mind the universal inciting power, 
which governs the body. It is only one among the myriads 


i 


THE INCITANTS. 


283 


which animate it; and its actions, like those of all other 
stimuli, take place through the intervention of the nervous 
agency. It can only produce movements in the muscular 
apparatuses of parts supplied with cerebral or spinal nerves, 
or nerves of a cerebrospinal origin. It only commands in 
its action a part of the nervous system. The will, or what 
is the same thing, the mind ordering movements, by affecting 
the special muscles of parts subjected to its control, changes 
their position. It moves the whole body by its operation on 
the musculoso-locomotive apparatuses or organs. But all 
the body is passive in this movement, except the organs 
themselves in which it determines the nervous influence. It 
is the same case where the movement is only of a part. The 
motive power of the will is expended in the muscles. Its 
direct action extends no farther; and the whole or the part 
is moved through the osseo-muscular attachments. The 
amount of organized matter, consequently, in any living body 
on which the will, through nervous intervention, can directly 
determine movements, is inconsiderable compared to the 
'whole. 

Upon a general view of the subject, there can be no doubt 
but the changes, the ceaseless revolutions of which man and 
all animated beings are the perpetual theatre, are due to the 
nervous organ or placed in its subordination. According 
to Haller and the actual lights, the will operates through 
nervous agency on irritability, and produces its excitements. 
Like all the material incitants, it is merely, as Dutrochet. 
terms it, a “ nervimotor.” Irritability, the will, and the 
nervous influx, are the primary elements of all the voluntary 
acts. The influx or irradiation of the nervous matter in the 
voluntary muscles, is the immediate cause of these acts. 
The will achieves this irradiation. Irritability is an organic 
property, the nervous agent, an organic substance, and so far 
as these two are concerned, the action is to be regarded as 
that of matter on matter. But the will subverting the 
nervous equilibrium, and concentrating the nervous power 
in the muscles to be moved, is the action of spirit on matter. 

This whole action is involved in much perplexity, ob- 


284 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


scurity. The operation of the will is on the nervous sub¬ 
stance; the voluntary movements are the sequences of this 
first operation. Irritability one of the elements, like all the 
vital properties, can but be an attribute of the attractile, 
plastic force imparted at first to the ovum by the generating 
act. The manner of manifesting activity by the nervous 
agent, declares it to be polaroid, or of a nature which con¬ 
temns most if not all the essential properties of matter or 
body. We know absolutely nothing of the constitution of 
the force which chemifies living bodies. It offers itself to 
our observation in the phenomena of irritability, sensibility, 
the laws, by which it develops its organizing action, and 
in these phenomena, we see nothing that savours of mate¬ 
riality. The expression, therefore, of the action of the will 
or of the mind on matter, as matter is defined, is extremely 
doubtful as to correctness and truth. If we say tangible, 
ponderable form is only one mode in which matter exists 
in nature, and there are other modes, the' chances for cor¬ 
rectness would be improved. Man must trace the mecha¬ 
nical order; must see every thing in distinction. This ex¬ 
planation of the mechanism and action of volition bears the 
specific impress of his genius, of his weakness. 

In many of the pathological states, as in chorea, the vari¬ 
ous spasmodic affections, actions take place in the organs 
subjected to volition, often violent, and more powerful than 
the will can produce, without any interference of its agency, 
and in despite of all its efforts. So that the will is not the only 
cause of movements in the parts on wdiich it is accustomed 
to act. Any lesion too made in any part of the cerebro¬ 
spinal axis, will excite motions independently of it, as is 
abundantly manifest from the experiments of Flourens, Le- 
gallois, Foville, Philip, Bouillard, Pinel, Grand-Champ. 

Do these involuntary acts take place by the concentration 
of the nervous influence in the muscles in imitation of the 
will ? There is nothing wdiich proves it to be so; the unhy 
or integrity of the nervous organ alone is indispensable. 
Lesions and muscular excitements appear to relate directly 
to each other as cause and effect. If, then, these excitements 


THE INCITANTS. 


285 


and those spasmodic movements can occur without the will, 
or so far as we can see, any other condition than that of the 
unity of the nervous tissue, the position, that the action of 
the will is by concentration of the nervous influence in the 
organs to be moved, occupies, at least, doubtful ground; 
unless it be admitted, the nerves have as many specific 
modes of activity as there are stimulators. 

For two centuries now animals living and dead have been 
fully, and freely dissected; nature has been tortured and in¬ 
terrogated. She speaks in but one voice ; has spoken enough 
for the immortality of many of the lovers of her truth. The 
facts she clearly discloses serve manifestly for the basis of 
the systems of our illustrious men, as the facts she conceals. 
The disagreement of these systems is the proof. Posterity 
will have trouble, who will be our critics. The insatiable 
desire of knowing is born in the human bosom, and what is 
inevitable, science will extend its attractive form over the 
dark as over the enlightened phases of things. Could we 
know dynamically the great union of mind and matter, we 
probably might explore what is now far above our compre¬ 
hension, and arrive at some insight* into nature's high divine 
mechanics. 

If, however, it were granted, that the theory of the deter¬ 
mination of the nervous influence accounts satisfactorily for 
the phenomena of volition, there are other actions of the 

* Mr. I. Taylor has recently indulged in some magnificent speculations, as 
to what might be the results, could the power of volition, as it exists in the 
living, be extended by the mind to anorganic bodies. Armed with such a 
power over matter in both the living and azootic states, he says, “ The se¬ 
raph, who steers his course from sun to sun, and overtakes the swiftest of the 
planets in its orbit, may corporeally possess an invisible and imponderable 
aether, or (which is equally credible) he may command a gigantic body solid 
as porphyry.”—(Phys. Theor. of Another Life, p. 52.) 

But in the region beyond the tyranny of facts, the flight of philosophy is 
easy and boundless. In place of finding out the governinglaws, the mind con¬ 
ceives them, of investigating facts with the scalpel, crucible, optic glass—the 
unwieldy, troublesome apparatus—it originates them, and disposes of them 
in an order conformably to the laws it itself creates. About to turn Homer 
into English, Cowper remarks, “ to translate in verse is to dance in fetters.” 
So is the research of laws and of facts, which already exist, such as nature. 

24* 


286 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


mind on the organism to which it could afford no solution. 
For, certainly, the slow wasting of grief, the melancholy 
which “ gnaws on the damask cheek,” could not be explained 
by the concentration of the nervous power on the parenchyma 
of the organs. From the phenomena, we should be inclined to 
attribute them to any other condition. Nor could we suspect 
the effects of sudden fear—“ quum steterunt comse, et vox 
faucibus hsesit—et qui gellidus membra quatit, gellidusque 
coit formidine sanguis”—due to the accumulation of the ner¬ 
vous energy in the sanguiferous system, the skin, and subcu¬ 
taneous organs. 

Contrarily to the theory, the appearances would warrant 
the belief that this energy is repelled or completely annihi¬ 
lated instead of beings concentrated. The lively vibrations 
of the heart, the fulness of the capillary circulation, wdiich 
joy produces, would seem to indicate the abundance of this 
energy in these structures. But this same energy is exalted, 
excessive in all acute inflammations. The mechanism of 
voluntary muscular contractions, of joy, and inflammation 
cannot be the same. 

Indeed, if the mind act invariably, as must be the case, on 
the organized matter through the intervention of nervous 
agency, every distinct emotion, operation, demands a sepa¬ 
rate manner of application of the power. The suddenness 
•with which a thought will explore the living organism armed 
sometimes with death, the instantaneous rubescence of shame, 
paleness of terror, the rapidity of volition, would, neverthe¬ 
less, seem to indicate the immediate application of the incit¬ 
ing power. From various considerations, M. Pariset* is 
inclined to a similar opinion. 

This action of the mind on the living body, which sub¬ 
jects to a considerable extent the world to the empire of the 
will,—to the power of man and animals,—has constantly 
received much labor, and undergone the most rigid scrutiny 
of philosophers. And although the manner in which it 
takes place, cannot be precised, or profounded, truth has 
been brought into a very narrow compass. No organ has 

* Vid. tom. xvi. Diet, des Sci. Med., article Force. 


THE INCITANTS. 


287 


the power of self-motion. Every part of the organism has 
been placed by the hands of nature in dependence upon 
appropriate stimuli. Thus the heart waits for the blood, 
the eye for the light.—The integrity of the nervous tissue, 
as I have said, is essential. This integrity, consequently, 
and the stimuli are alone the conditions indispensable to the 
actions of vitality. And the will, so far as the simple mus¬ 
cular movements are concerned, is properly a stimulus, and 
relates to volition as cause to effect. 

Professor Barthez has labored to establish that, “ the 
integrity of the organic and sympathetic communications of 
the sanguiferous system with the muscles, is as necessary to 
the perfection of their movements, if not in the same degree, 
at least in the same way as that of the nervous system.”* It 
can only be remotely so, and the manner must be different. 
In a community of organs, such as a living body, arranged 
in subordination, whose actions are reciprocal, and form a 
continuity of cause and effect, any one of them endowed 
with a capital function, must have the same influence and 
relation with the movements in question. The arteries sup¬ 
ply the muscles, as all other parts, with the elements of their 
composition. The only direct connection they can have 
with the muscular system must be either nutritive or me¬ 
chanical. Like the nerves, they cannot provoke movements 
in this system. The integrity, therefore, of the arterial ves¬ 
sels, or thtir communications cannot be essential in the same 
degree, or operate in the same manner, as that of the nerv¬ 
ous tissue in producing such movements. The complete 
value of Prof. Barthez’s comparison may be estimated in 
this; that all living motion, all the functions, as I have be¬ 
fore noticed, depend directly and reciprocally on a solitary 
function or act of the plastic vivifying force, that of identi¬ 
fying or converting foreign bodies into the living tissues — 
nutrition . All the functions in their last analysis can but 
be the varied reactions of this force, transmitted, kept alive 
by generation, on the external world, of which the nervous 
organ is the primary capital instrument of communication. 

* Nouv. Elemens de la Sci. de 1’ homme, tom. ii. p. 107. 


288 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


— Primary , because it is charged with commencing and 
continuing all efforts; capital , because all the functions are 
placed under its subordination, through whose organs accord¬ 
ingly its substance is everywhere dill used. 

The clear, neat conception, consequently, of all vital efforts 
among which volitions form a class, must be as I have said, 
that of the integrity of the nervous organ and a stimulus. 

A drop of nitric acid, any stimulus applied to the external 
extremity of a nerve, puts the muscle in play to which it 
corresponds. The stimulus of volition, if we say it descends 
from the brain, affecting the other extremity, if the muscle 
be voluntary, produces the same result. Philip cut the 
pneumogastric nerve of a rabbit, applied galvanism, pro¬ 
cured digestion of the food, and concluded the galvanic and 
nervous fluids are the same, the same effects being produced. 
What shall we say ? any material stimulus and the will are 
the same, both being capable of exciting the same muscular 
action, or that the will is only a stimulus. They both sti¬ 
mulate the muscles. But in the one case, the action is sim¬ 
ple, anomalous, and bears no proportion to any thing beside; 
in the other, it is complicated. It comes forth in relation to 
the torrent of events, has its appropriate place in the universe 
or in surrounding circumstances. It plunges the dagger 
in Caesar’s body; frees the “ eternal city” in popular opinion 
from the rule of a tyrant, and secures civic liberty to mil¬ 
lions. Or it opens the fabled box of Pandora; brings fire 
down from heaven to animate the statue of Prometheus; 
gives to marble and canvas the living expression.— It is 
the action of august reason, intelligence expressed by the 
voluntary organs claiming its right, establishing domination 
over the external world. 

The will is more than a stimulus. The simple muscular 
action of the two will only compare. The action of the one, 
so far as external circumstances are concerned, is a simple, 
solitary sequence; of the other, the sequence of sequences, 
tending to the accomplishment of remote events judged, 
foreseen by the mind. 

Although all living phenomena must be from the action 


THE INCITANTS. 


289 


of stimuli, in many cases this action is extremely obscure; 
and in some, even, all traces of it disappear, and the very 
negation of it seems to hold in its place. In all such cases, 
however, the action itself of the organism must be proof of 
the operative presence of a stimulus, since, in such a consti¬ 
tution of dynamical forces as it forms, such action would be 
an effect without a cause, which is unpliysiological, uncosmic. 

TV e are entirely sensible of the continued, constant action 
of innumerable stimulations, as in all the external sensations, 
the circulation, digestion, the secretions, absorptions, volitions. 
—But what causes the foetus at a certain age to leap in the 
maternal womb ? Immersed in a liquid of equable tempera¬ 
ture, its muscular contractions cannot arise from sensations, 
from which it is principally isolated; and its organs are ac¬ 
customed to those which it does enjoy. Is it from too long 
repose in one position, or excessive accumulation of increas¬ 
ing vitality in its unfolding tissues ? If we say, in the first 
case, the mechanism is by uneasiness, this internal feeling 
is merely the state of the nervous tissue itself, and does not 
arise from an impression ah externo —from stimulation. In 
no case can it be determined what immediately precedes or 
causes the muscular movements in question. Nor should 
we believe the nervous system, first mover in all living 
actions, as intimated, is capable of self-excitement. 

All observers have noticed, that the heart drawn suddenly 
from a living animal, will continue its movements for some' 
time afterwards. This phenomenon has been explained by 
converting this activity into an automatism. But wdiat is 
this automatism, but one of those ambitious words, which 
serves, where our mind cannot push its ideas after the foot¬ 
steps of nature, to fill up the lacunce , and conceal the de¬ 
formity of incorrigible ignorance ? 

The heart contracts from the presence or stimulus of the 
blood, but what stimulates or produces its diastole or dilata¬ 
tion ? Both its movements are essentially active, the systole 
as the diastole. The author once enjoyed the opportunity 
of grasping the heart of a living man. He could not in the 
least prevent the dilatation with all the force he could exert 


290 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


—an experiment often made before him. If, therefore, the 
contraction is caused by the blood, the dilatation cannot be, 
since it occurs in its absence, or at the moment, when it is 
forced out of the expanding cavity. 

Galen and Langrish have left their testimony, that the 
heart dilates to receive the blood, and not because it has 
already received it. M. Berard has seen the heart of some 
of the batraciens at complete rest, spontaneously resume its 
action. The same phenomenon of the whole body without the 
heart, was repeatedly witnessed by M. Edwards. “ Lorsqu’ 
on a excise le coeur a une grenouille, et qu’ on V a mise dans 
1’ eau non aeree, si on attend le moment ou elle a cesse de se 
mouvir et qu’ elle ne donne plus de signe de vie quoiqu’ on 
1’excite en l’agitant et en la pinqant des qu’ on la retire de 
l’eau, elle commence a se ranimer et se meten mouvement.”* 

If, then, the heart by its own innate force can put itself in 
play, although essential to the continuance of its motion, the 
blood can neither be its sole nor prime mover. It is impos¬ 
sible to decide here the way the truth of nature has gone. 

But if, in the calm and tranquillity of health, when the 
forces of living bodies right with themselves are responding 
harmoniously to the forces of the great outward wurld, in 
whose immense, energetic action they are encircled, we be¬ 
hold movements, phenomena, to which we cannot assign the 
dependence, such movements and phenomena are much 
more numerous in the pathological states. To what cause, 
for example, can we refer many of the spasms, convulsions, 
lancinating pains, indescribable sensations—anomalous move¬ 
ments—we are called to combat at the sick bed—this solemn 
and unwelcome theatre, where sometimes we are the forced 
spectators of incurable agony—where the sick man lies 
tossed as with the supernatural power of the furies—calms— 
dies—in the bath of tears love sheds around him ? In many 
cases of violent attack, we observe the forces, as I may say, 
running to and fro—here they have deserted the organs; 
yonder they exert their accumulated strength—rage as in 
furious combat with one another. In the dark therapeutic 

* De 1’ influence des agens phys. sur la vie, p. 6. 


THE INCITANTS. 


291 


night, which yet hangs over the world, we see not what has 
disturbed their cairn, severed their union, or stimulates to 
their mutinous, tumultuous movement. The scalpel, autop¬ 
sy, often reveals nothing—the organs show fair, where the 
power of life struggled and sunk—manifest no traces of the 
awful, desolating action of which they had been the seats. 

In excessive and frightful hemorrhages, often the palpita¬ 
tions of the heart and convulsions of the muscles, will be 
more violent as the blood still loses. Every one remembers 
the case of De Haen—so often quoted, but with perhaps too 
much confidence—of a female, who literally expired with 
apparently a full and regular pulse, but which dissection 
showed was a motion of the arteries without blood. 

In these two last cases, the very absence of stimulus ap¬ 
pears to supply its place, in producing the motions of the 
heart and spasms of the muscles; or, rather, they seem as 
has been thought by some, to arise from “ organic spon¬ 
taneity .” 

But this spontaneity, as already intimated, is contradicted 
by the very manner in which the living body is organized, 
and by the co-ordination of the actuating forces. If such 
an operative power existed, it could only act as a fetter to its 
dynamical enginery. All in it tends to unity, subjecting it 
to the action and control of a single cause—that, which 
through its attraction on surrounding bodies moulds the 
structures or engines. If, therefore, according to the em¬ 
phatic expression of Galen, “the organs spontaneously come 
forth in action as the blasts of Vulcan’s forge” through their 
own independent, inborn energies, their general structure 
conflicts with such movement. Besides, such energies, as 
noticed in the second section of this chapter, oppose all idea 
of subordinate, consecutive action, such as life. 

Absolute immobility is inconceivable. Every vital as 
every mental and material act, is a sequence, which must 
have depended upon a preceding act or sequence, or exist 
absurdly an effect without a cause. The same conclusion, 
consequently, as before, is irresistibly forced upon us, that, 
that which immediately precedes all the acts of vitality is 


292 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


stimuli offering their impressions. And, in those cases, 
where no traces of stimulation are discernible, or the ab¬ 
sence of stimuli appear, to supply their place, the action 
itself is incontestable evidence of their active presence. 

It does really appear to us, the inertia , with which the 
philosophers have clothed matter, tends much to bedim, 
bewilder this idea of stimulation. The bodies we so fami¬ 
liarly handle we regard as inactive in themselves. We do 
not feel their operative forces in our grasp; and cannot so 
easily conceive how many of them applied to our surfaces, 
even in very small portions, should suddenly produce such 
prodigious effects. A few grains of opium, or drops of 
Croton oil, promptly subvert the forces of the strongest 
man. We suppose such substances offer something pecu¬ 
liar to life, other than mere power, to which their effects are 
due. 

Observation assures us, if the bodies in celestial space 
have not the power of changing their conditions, they never¬ 
theless persevere in ceaseless effort. Every being in nature, 
to all reason, exists in perpetual action. All at this moment * 
are performing the same movements, doing the same things, 
in which they engaged at the hour of their creation, and in 
which they will continue to persevere. The displays of their 
activities , therefore , do not emanate from them , hut go for¬ 
ward with them. Thus the motion, which brings any of the 
earth’s bodies toward her centre in falling, is the same 
motion that body has manifested since she has been in the 
deep ocean of space.—The action any stimulus offers to our 
living fibres, is the action that stimulus has borne to us from 
the hands of the original Creator, and not simply an effort 
it puts forth when brought in contact with these fibres. 
The action was created with the stimulus , with the star , with all 
natural existences. Need I say, in confirmation, that helle¬ 
bore has purged in all annals of the world; opium produced 
sleep; fire warmed. 

The incitants, then, by which we are supported, remain 
around us in unsuspended effort, amid which the vivifying 


THE INCITANTS. 


293 


force displays its activity, the nerves, the immediate instru¬ 
ment, stimulation the manner, organization the end. 

To us, this idea of ample fulness, ceaseless, exhaustless 
activity of nature, vivifies the conception of vital incitation 
by stimuli. These stimuli touch us with actions ordained 
to them; actions coeval with their existence; framed by 
the Divine Creator; come to us from his presence in -these 
stimuli, and produce their effects by an inviolable, an 
original code of laws which has never been changed. They 
form the medium, we may think, which unites our transitive 
organic being here to him; through which He irradiates all 
the life of the world. Stimuli, and the responding organizing 
force, are his ministers, his means of our existence, but the 
streams of vitality have their fountain first in Him. We 
can furthermore conceive, where the action concourses so 
much as in life, the beauty, flower where it occupies, so 
delicate, easily destroyed, that agents not armed, as these 
stimuli, with Divine prescience, would be unfit to excite such 
action. 

The idea, accordingly, of the inertia of matter, or that 
the incitants only exert their power, when brought in actual 
contact with the living surfaces, is detrimental to the true 
comprehension of their philosophy or active nature. 

Stimuli have an elective attraction for different parts of 
the organism; or these parts manifest a susceptibility pecu¬ 
liar to themselves for the reception of their action and in¬ 
fluence. So that, in whatever manner their contact is 
achieved,—whether by respiration, by introduction into the 
circulation through the absorption of the external or internal 
mucous, dermic tissue, they will exert on particular organs 
a specific activity. This sort of activity is very observable 
in many of the medicinal agents, as nux vomica , cantharides, 
calomel, tartar emetic, opium,—and in the poisons of many 
of the contagious and atmospheric pestilential diseases. 

This susceptibility of stimulation peculiar to the distinct 
structures, dependent upon the modification of the vital pro¬ 
perties of each, constituting a sort of individual life in them, 
gives to the incitants still more ample dominions. Their 

25 


294 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


impulses do not suspend in the organs on which they make 
the impressions, but expand in the consecutive movement 
through the synergies and sympathies of the organs in the 
states of health and disease. When we consider their great 
variety, the prodigious power possessed by many of them 
in the smallest portions, so much exaggerated in our day 
by the homcepaths, they soar in the amplitude of their forces, 
beyond all estimation. But could the value of their just 
action on all the organs, in the manner M. Gendrin has 
attempted for the inflammations of them, be weighed and 
appreciated in all the changes of health and disease, it would 
complete the knowledge of hygiene and practical medicine. 

The energies stimuli offer to living bodies are subordinate 
to the molecular attractions, zootic and azootic. They create 
and destroy them; and in this respect, hold a conspicuous 
relation with the life the world nourishes. They are limited 
to definite combinations, and we may suppose, under such 
restraint, can never evolve the forms of matter in such shapes 
as will unpeople the earth, although in various historical 
annals, such a result has been more or less threatened by the 
poisons of different pestilences; or afford to it a greater 
amount of natural health. The more we consider the range 
of these stimuli and their energies, the means of our exist¬ 
ence, the more they vanish from the power of contempla¬ 
tion. 

But among all the vital incitants, as already, that which 
holds the first rank and most conspicuous place, is the mind 
perceiving or remembering impressions. The union of sensa¬ 
tions or perceptions present or recalled, with the power of 
originating and directing organic movements, forms the net 
apprehension of the will. I cannot conceive any thing 
besides in its idea. On the one side, the impressions of the 
external world or of the organism itself are felt and judged; 
on the other, movements are ordered accordingly as the ten¬ 
dency of the impressions is judged or valued. The innate 
love of life, a fact irreducible, is the law which decides the 
direction of the movement. Hence the acts the mind im- 


FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 


295 


presses on the body, by way of excellence and distinction, 
, are styled rational. 

Without such a power to wield all the external visible 
forms of creatures, which manifest coaptative relations with 
what is exterior; necessitate for them a perpetual sojourn in 
land, air, water—the inhabitable regions—and by which 
they carry on conservative intercourse with the world, it is 
plain, these forms would be mechanically incomplete. But 
this power which gives them functions, constitutes them all 
useful to these creatures, so that we may say, they were 
born for volition whatever may be the peculiarities of their 
sojourn, forms of all the inhabitable world an university, 
where nature lectures to the contemplation of man of the 
sublime wisdom, skill, and prescience of the Sovereign 
Reason. 


SECTION IV. 

FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 

Is the will free? Crombie, Edwards, Priestley, have made 
it the topic of special treatises. Philosophers, divines, meta¬ 
physicians, all ages, find occasion for its discussion. Never 
has a subject been more labored, never has one yielded less 
fruit, and more darkness. 

If the question be, Is the will a solitary sequence or what 
is the same thing , self-active? —On the one side, we have seen 
the integrity of the nervous organ was indispensable to all its 
operations; on the other, an impression felt or remembered. 
Like all other natural agents, its movements are limited to 
certain conditions, which are the laws of nature, or the ulti¬ 
mate facts of our reason. Volition, as other physical phe¬ 
nomena, consequently, has only a circumscribed sphere of 
causation. 

Is the will free to recall ideas or stimulate recollection? 
We often cannot remember what we desire. The laws of 
mind, then, of which it can only be a property or a state, 
like those of the organism, fling about it their barriers. Of 


296 


LIVING MECHANICS. 


one thing, however, we may be entirely certain, its operative 
sphere is sufficiently great to make men reasonably account¬ 
able at the public bar of their countries, and at the tribunal 
of their August Creator. 

The hope of its future knowledge, as I have said of the 
mind, generally is in the study of the mental phenomena in 
connection with philosophical anatomy. Since all the actors 
or agents of nature are subordinated by the secondary laws, 
this question of “the freedom of the will” is unapt to just 
conception; I abandon it to the metaphysicians. 

SECTION V. 

RELATION OF THE OSSEO-MUSCULAR LEVERS TO THE INCITING POWERS. 

But very slight observation of the manner of the origin 
and insertion of the muscles, is sufficient to show, that to 
move the different parts of the body with the least degree of 
power, would require an arrangement very different from 
what actually exists.—The origin and insertion, in some 
respect or other, would need a complete change. Since 
volume is an element of muscular force, animal motion by 
muscular contraction appears incompatible with organic 
symmetry and beauty, and general convenience. Hence 
everywhere, for the proportion of form, and to gain velocity, 
the power is wasted, sacrificed.* 

The muscles of the trunk, and lower extremities, where 
the greatest exertion of muscular power is demanded, form 
some slight exception to this general law. Here, in some 
cases, processes stand out for muscular insertion, and the 
heads of the bones expand, which enable the muscles to act 
on the bones, at a less oblique angle, and thereby their 
power is augmented.! But, generally, as I have said, the 
muscles are attached to the bones without any regard to the 
saving of the power which is to move them. I do not know 
by any of the writers on animal physics, that the average 

* Vid. Bostock’s Elem. Syst. of Physiology, vol. i. p. 153. 

Vid Borelli—De molu animalium. 


RELATION OF THE INCITING POWERS. 297 

waste or sacrifice of power in any animal, to secure the 
general beauty, elegance and convenience of the forms, and 
increased velocity, has ever been subjected to actual calcu¬ 
lation. 

Hippocrates recommended the study of arithmetic to his 
son Troilus, but Winslow and Borelli were among the first, 
who successfully applied geometry to the elucidation-'of the 
animal motions: This loss of power, arising from the dis¬ 
advantageous, muscular insertion of the fore-arm, in any 
weight to be raised by it, was estimated by the former at 
about fo ths of the whole:—or one part of the entire force 
raises the weight, and nineteen parts are lost or expended 
by the manner of insertion. 

Since, therefore, muscular power and volume are in rela¬ 
tion, were we to conceive any creature constructed upon the 
principle of economizing to the greatest extent the voluntary 
force which is to excite its movements, its forms would be 
those of monstrosity. But nature, we may say, enamoured 
with beauty, elegance and fitness, in shaping and compiling 
the living forms, draws upon her own exhaustless resources, 
multiplies, and bends the motive pow r er to suit the style of 
her labor. Thus she lavishes the immortal strength of 
the mind in securing the temporary movements of the fleet¬ 
ing organization she has united with it. 

During the hours of wakefulness, our thoughts through 
volition, constantly agitate and keep in play the organs. 
The amount of action thus impressed through these organs 
on external objects is incalculable. The whole inhabited 
earth, once a wilderness, has been remodeled by this action 
derived from our intelligence. The forces of matter by it 
have been recomposed, and thrown into new channels of 
operation, its forms changed, and a new face exists. 


25* 


I 


298 VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OSCILLATIONS, REVOLUTIONS OF THE GREAT FORCE OF LIFE IN 

PROGRESSIVE EPOCHS. 

Although all the beings of nature exist perpetually in 
nisu , constantly expend the same forces with which they 
were endowed at creation, their laws knowing no change; 
although accordingly the sun has brightened the face of the 
planets with the same day; the planets have travelled through 
the same spaces in heaven; the comets continued to drag 
their same trailing fires; the fixed stars to burn with equa¬ 
ble flames; and. the vital incitants to persevere in the exer¬ 
tion of the same influences, yet in the great action and reac¬ 
tion of the whole, some slight variations occur, which tend 
to equilibrium. Now before we advance in the next chapter 
to the study of psychology, we will cursorily glance at some 
of the accidents or circumstances of the world which tend 
to accelerate or retard the development of the living species. 


SECTION I. 

ANTIQUITY OF THE LIVING SPECIES-IMPEDIMENTS TO RESEARCH. 

If the whole mass of the earth is constantly agitated about 
the great central axis of the sun by the dynamical forces, the 
matter of her surface is not less continually and energetically 
agitated by the force of life. Modified as are the forms it 
evolves, stretching out from the hour of creation without any 
thing apparent, except the divine interdiction, to impede its 
progress, the phenomena of this as of the other original 
forces of the world, strike us with astonishment. 

On whatever solitary lands the curious may wander; at 
whatever explorable depths they may reach, the ancient 
footsteps of life meet the eye to show that it has travelled 
there. Its impress is ineffaceably fixed on ancient rocks 
when they were young; nay, many, if not most of those 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE INQUIRY. 


299 


composing the terrestrial crust, are evidently the crystalline 
spoliations of its forms. 

How magnificent the epochs the noisy pen of history at¬ 
tempts to fill by the side of those still, solitary measures of 
time, before man came forth with his letters to record, when 
nature was her own historian; and her life was marshaling 
its infant ranks to extend its empire to the possession of the 
earth ! How deep the gulf of night they form, down which 
so many centuries since have plunged—haunts of the living 
Almighty—where men who yesterday were nothing, new to 
being, yet confident in their thought, fancy they hear her 
voice; distinguish her traces, and rebuild to comprehension 
the manner she has reached us! 

We have observed her laws, and noticed their products. 
No doubt they are uniform in their operations. But as yet 
we have lived only a few moments in her presence; and 
have not seen what her laws would achieve in great dura¬ 
tions of time. The little we have witnessed, we take to be 
the whole of her developments, and on it hastily rear up our 
fragile science. Conceive of some strangers, who should be 
introduced into the theatre at the moment, when the last act 
of one of Shakspeare’s noble plays is closing, and the last 
words are pronouncing. They study what they have wit¬ 
nessed of this act, and these words in all their possible rela¬ 
tions and bearings; and attempt to rebuild the entire action, 
the characters and events of the whole play. From mate¬ 
rials so scant, they must arrive at very different results; and 
originate models entirely different from those conceived by 
the mind of the great Shakspeare. So philosophers, who 
only witness some of nature’s acts, and a single expression 
of her laws, and judging, by what she does in short intervals, 
all she accomplishes in the great flights of time, with all the 
truth they may be permitted to see, must arrive, as we can 
but believe, at conclusions very contradictory and opposite 
to reality in regard to the events and revolutions—the scenes 
—through which she has passed—to the whole action. 

Thus the growth of one country being found deposited 
in the soil of another — the organic productions of the 


300 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


Tropics fossilized in hyperborean lands, — they conceive 
at some remote epoch, the two poles of the earth swung 
even in the great plain of the ecliptic, when an equable 
temperature reigned over all its surface. Such pheno¬ 
mena, therefore, are not to be reconciled with the physi¬ 
cal laws, without admitting all climates, as they originally 
existed, to have undergone a complete revolution. Or 
what would accommodate the same phenomena,—in “the 
dark annals” the sun originally rose in Arcturus, and set 
behind the icy fetters of Capricorn.* So that these pecu¬ 
liar productions of the Tropics in ancient times flourished 
in these frozen regions, where they are entombed.—Or by 
such an altered course of the sun, darting at each revolution 
his vertical rays on the two poles of the earth, the eternal 
ice which covers them in the course of ages would be melted; 
and immense floods of water would inundate, and sweep 
over all the continents. One of such currents setting in 
from the South to the North,f would bear the products in 
question to the frozen lands of their entombment. And do 
not all countries, they triumphantly ask, bear unequivocal 
testimony, that great floods of water, at some period, have 
swept over their surfaces? 

Many of the Testacea, Pachydermata, Palseotheria, gigan¬ 
tic fluviatile Saurins, Ophidians, wflth their congeners, have 
entirely disappeared. In the great course of nature, the liv¬ 
ing races are occasionally extinguished, and new ones take 
their place accommodated to the progressive changes of the 
world. Science noble, colossal in form, but feeble, yet in¬ 
trepid, places one of her little hands where the hours are 
playing, the other on the infancy of time, and attempts to 
press to her heart the operative, progressive universe. She 
darts her eye along the shadowy path things have travelled. 

* Vid. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature. 

t According to the observations of Mr. Heyden—(Geology)—these cur¬ 
rents on our Western continent, appear to have passed from North to South; a 
direction exactly opposite to those of the continents of the old world. If Mr. 
Heyden be correct, this hypothesis, therefore, in accounting for the direction 
of these currents, would meet with difficulties on every side, whether it argue 
from the hydrostatical laws or those of general gravitation. 


DIFFICULTIES OF THE INQUIRY- 


301 


But they have not always left very distinct traces over the 
smooth abyss they have passed. The stupendous drama of 
which they are a part, is still playing on; nature, the mighty 
actress, is faithfully developing the great plot of her Creator. 
The parts of the plot to be unfolded must throw new light 
on those which have been acted out. 

Our science has not futurity at command. Her sole 
reliance is on the invariableness of the physical laws, of 
which she cannot alw r ays be the faithful interpretress. Tak¬ 
ing this solitary invariableness for guide she passes up the 
torrent of events to behold the doings of things on wdiich the 
curtain has fallen. Great spaces are broken dowrn, vast la¬ 
cunae separate them ; the lamps which once hung there are 
burnt out; and the only alternative she has left of rekindling 
the extinguished lights, and filling up these lacunae, is by 
altering or bending the course of nature. Thus, as I have 
said, the Southern pole of the world is elevated to correspond 
with the plain of the Ecliptic; the beautiful chariot of morn¬ 
ing is turned from the ancient gates of her “ rosy-fingered,” 
and scours up and down the frozen talus of the poles; floods 
of water burst forth and inundate the two hemispheres to 
furnish sepulchres for plants and animals found in strange 
lands; the old living races grow hoary, decrepid, and perish 
from age; and a new creation takes their place.* 

The motion of reason, I may say, is in a direction exactly 
opposite to that of nature. What she does last reason sees 
first, which always sets out from the z to progress to the a 
of things. Notwithstanding, the order she has observed in 
the achievement of her multiform labors, may not be so 
easily discernible, and liable to misinterpretation, it is never¬ 
theless certain the individual agents, which play in her great 
action, have continued the same. Passed over the gulf now 
of so many centuries, here they are still. Here are the 
seasons and the hours dancing in the same circles—here 
over the sepulchres, which drink greedily, are dashing full 
the torrents of life. The indelible traces of this life, which 
all the forms of matter wear, sufficiently attest its restless, 

* Vid. La Marck—Philosophie de la Zoologie. 


302 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


busy power; and that this power has been kept in prodigious 
activity from all antiquity. The successive destruction of 
the ancient races, and the appearance of life in new and 
altered shapes, are phenomena, solitary facts, on which the 
other facts of the universe shed no light to inform our reason. 

SECTION II. 

ESTIMATE-VARIATION OF THE NUMBER OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 

Was antiquity better peopled than the modern annals? 
what are the causes which modify population? During the 
present century this last has become a great question. The 
sciences which tend directly to perfect civilization or the 
happiness of our species, demand its most rigorous investi¬ 
gation; and, under the general title of Political Economy, 
a great variety of talent and learning has been combined in 
the exploration. The industrious arts, inventions, institu¬ 
tions, human legislation, general statistics, physical geo¬ 
graphy, forming the basis of Political Economy proper, or 
philosophy of administrative government, fall not to us. 
Population, in the great hands of nature, traversing ages 
under the provisions and limitations of her laws, or natural 
political economy, claims here our efforts. 

History fallacious .—Since the origin of society an inte¬ 
rest must constantly have been felt to know the number of 
inhabitants. The proper and judicious administration of 
government; the pride, ambition of rulers; the passion and 
necessity of war, would imperiously demand such informa¬ 
tion. Accordingly we find the first examples of such enu¬ 
meration among the ancient Israelites. The number of 
their tribes was ordered to be taken by their rulers. In 
Egypt the number of births was registered; and Diodorus 
Siculus says, “on the day which gave Sesostris birth, seven¬ 
teen thousand children w 7 ere born.” We know that Anto- 
nine ordered the names of the children to be inscribed in 
the temple of Saturn thirty days after their birth. Under 
the reign of Servius Tullius, sixty-five years after the foun- 


THE HUMAN SPECIES. 


303 


elation of Rome, according to Titus Livy, the census of the 
inhabitants was taken. Tertullian makes mention of a book 
of life; and Caesar carrying war into Helvetia writes:—“ In 
castris Helvetiorum tabulae repertae sunt, literis graecis con- 
lectae et ad Caesarem perlatae; quibus in tabulis nominatim 
ratio confecta erat, qui numerus domo exisset eorum, qui 
arma ferre possunt; et item seperati pueri, senes mulier- 
esque.”* The only table extant, I believe, of mortality 
among the Romans, is that of Domitius, in which Schmelzer 
discovers calculations very similar to those of our own day. 

The data on which is calculated this ever varying, moving 
picture of the living world, are, at best, uncertain; and the 
truth educed from them is made still more so, by the natu¬ 
ral proclivity to exaggeration, love of wonder, rivalry, am¬ 
bition, egotism of nations, and the tyranny poetry exercises 
over all historical facts. Accordingly, could we credit it, 
the population of antiquity, as seen in history, would truly 
excite our astonishment. Ninus, we read in Diodorus, led 
into Bactriana 1 , 700,100 infantry, 210,000 horsemen, 10,600 
chariots; and was met on the day of battle by the king of 
that country with 400,000 men. Twenty thousand popu¬ 
lous villages, according to Herodotus, flourished in Egypt at 
the time of Amasis. Under the special direction of his 
Muse, as to the population of ancient Greece, what an im¬ 
pression Homer would make from the number who went to 
the Trojan war. He carefully recounts the countries which 
gave them birth; the number of ships in which they went; 
and the names of the captains who led them. From how 
many “ reedy,’ 7 “rocky,” “wave-worn shores,”—“meadowy, 
flowery, grassy, leafy fields” they come, “glittering in bur¬ 
nished brass, their foreheads shorn, and wavy locks behind” 
—from Epidaurus “crowned with purple vines;” “Thisbe 
famed for doves;” from “ Echinades looking o’er the curling 

waves”— 

“ Their multitude was such, 

That to immortalize them, each by name, 

Ten months, ten tongues, an everlasting voice, 

And breast of adamant, would ne’er suffice.’ 

* De Bello Galico, lib i. 29. 


304 


/ 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


From their ships and war-tents, they poured forth in such 
thronging crowds that 

o o 

“ They overspread Scamander’s grassy vale, 

Myriads as leaves, or as the flowers of Spring.” 

Vallace, in his Treatise on the relative population of ancient 
and modern times, develops a host of facts, as marvellous 
as they are incredible. Yossius estimated the actual popu¬ 
lation of the globe in his time to be 500 , 000 , 000 ; Ricioli, to 
twice that number. The opinion was advanced by Montes¬ 
quieu, that the world was three times more populous in the 
age of Julius Ceesar than at the present. Contrarily, Mr. 
Hume maintains, “our own epoch was never surpassed in 
the number of living men.” In the Journal de Trevoux, 
the aggregate number is put down at 720 millions, w T hich 
corresponds nearly to the late estimate of M. Malte-Brun 
of from 640 to 650 millions. 

This enumeration by M. Malte-Brun may be considered 
as close an approximation to the probable truth as the sub¬ 
ject will admit at the actual time. But now, since the sud¬ 
den explosion of knowledge of all kinds, giving new life to 
human agency in procuring subsistence,* w T e cannot cal¬ 
culate from him the population for any remoteness of time 
backwards or forwards; and, especially, when we consider 
the varied fortunes through which society has reached us, 
the fortunes that await it; and all history is fallacious and 
uncertain, f 

* How strikingly does the actual number of inhabitants of the Isle of 
Great Britain, and some countries of Europe, contrast with their numbers 
of only half a century since? Besides their improvement in the arts of 
the soil, statistics show, their manufacture of cotton and other raw materials 
of foreign and domestic industry, has given to their numbers a prodigious 
augmentation. 

t Rousseau would not teach his pupil history as it is written; and it is 
not without some reason, in his feverish petulance, he poured out on it the 
bitterness of his eloquence.—(Emelius, tom. i.) 


305 


CAUSES OF. 

SECTION III. 

CAUSES WHICH MODIFY THE INTENSITY OF THE GREAT ACTION OF LIFE. 

It is only in the connection, the subordination of the vital 
to the general physical laws, and in the accidents, changes, 
through which our material economy is passing, that we 
are to behold the exacerbative movements—the contractions 
and expansions slow or sudden—of the great life of the 
world. 

Excepting the heat and light, so uniform, as has already 
been intimated, are the influences of the other stars of which 
ours is a mechanical member: or rather, so trifling are the 
variations to which they are subjected in relation to us, that 
they very slightly modify our terrestrial zoography. Their 
occasional obscurations, apogees, perigees, conjunctions, touch 
w T ith a force relatively very inappreciable, nothing. It is 
matter more immediately in contact;—the broad amplitude 
of the earth’s surface, against which beats and frets the solar 
blaze, covered with voluble air and flowing waters, rich in 
the power of changing its forms, which regulates the vital 
impetuosity. 

In the hands of nature, some of these revolutionable 
forms are the immediate supporters, as the alimentaria, to 
which human agency is permitted to give a partial impulse. 
All the balance can operate, modify by stimulation. Some 
of these forms waste, destroy life by a stimulating action 
offered to the living tissues, as the poisonous secretions of 
all contagious diseases; the Simoon of hot climates; malaria 
of murderous fevers, pestilences: some by a modifying action 
offered to the supporters, as destruction of fruitful soils by 
movable sands and running waters; volcanic ruptures, tem¬ 
pests, earthquakes; land-slips; hygrometrical vicissitudes of 
the atmosphere or long-continued draughts or rains; unsea¬ 
sonable cold; the cold of winter too long protracted. 

Some of these destroyers obviously strike again in their 
reaction the same part of the organic chain, and give to its 
vitality a new impetus. 

26 



306 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


1. Running waters .—If these waters remove from some 
places the herbiferous, fruit-bearing soil, or cover them up 
with a layer of sterile sand ; and perish out the lives which 
subsisted on them, they deposit again much of this same 
soil in low, marshy grounds, the bottoms of lakes, mouths of 
rivers, and estuaries of the seas into which they flow. Great 
deltas are thus formed by this detritus of the distant coun¬ 
tries, through which these rivers have flown, forming a most 
prolific soil. The gramina, the tender, juicy plants spring 
up luxuriantly; the oak, the poplar, gigantic forest trees, 
expand their wide branches. Ceres and Flora come to 
establish their reign. The herbivorous races with the lion, 
the jackall—all find food and shelter. Man approaches with 
his dog, and the domestic races; and builds his hut. His 
race expands in proportion to his industry, and the health, 
fertility of the soil; and, on the very spot where the whale 
and the dolphin played in the waves, or where the crocodile 
basked in the ancient rays of the sun, soon a great city rises 
up, and the feet of an overgrown generation are rattling over 
its pavements. 

Geologists assure us, at this day, similar alterations or 
formation of new lands are going on in the oceanic, lacus¬ 
trine, and flu viatic deltas. And, if we may hazard some 
speculations here; from the nature of the surrounding 
country, we should think, the deposits now taking place in 
the bottom of Lake Superior, and other lakes, will one day 
give birth to a soil, which shall far excel in fertility and 
extent that of,the same kind, progressing in Lemon Lake or 
the Lake of Geneva, Adriatic Gulf, Baltic Sea or any of the 
estuaries of the Old World. And that when the ploughshare 
co-operating with the natural causes, shall have exhausted 
the great inclined plane of our country looking to the Atlantic, 
the deltaic virgin soil of these great lakes, will be ancillary 
in the augmentation and subsistence of our future Americans. 
The formation of the great Delta of Egypt, of the great 
Valley of the Mississippi,—is evidently due to the action of 
running water. The transition more or less completely of 
these lakes to dry, arable land, from the menaced ruptured- 


CAUSES OF. 


307 


waters of one, Pres. Lyell* has predicted a deluge to our 
country, will not be a new phenomenon. Besides the rich 
provisions of life which nature has so visibly, so partially 
lavished upon us, she has other ample stores in natu. To 
mention no more, the growing deltules at the mouth of the 
Mississippi, must one day unite, and form a great body of 
the most productive soil. New Orleans will become a com¬ 
mon village; when upon the uplifted delta lower down the 
river, the Babylon of America will rise to overshadow the 
grandeur of ancient Thebes, Constantinople or Nineveh; 
and the delta itself exceed far in extent those of the Ganges, 
the Po, the Isonso of cotemporaneous growth, or even the 
old one of the Nile. 

As regards the growing lands of the Mississippi, there 
exist the most abundant, convincing evidence, that when 
such changes, as I have described, shall occur, they will not 
be new phenomena where they are. From existing monu¬ 
ments, there can remain no doubt, but that the rich prairies 
which occupy so much of Alabama, the Choctaw, and 
Chickasaw purchase, and Valley of the Mississippi, many of 
them ample in dimensions, are nothing but estuaries, and 
salt or fresh water lakes, which have been filled up, and the 
soil deltaic in character. “No one,” says Dr. William G. 
Little, who recently surveyed these regions of country, “ pos¬ 
sessed of the slightest geological acumen, but on examination 
would irresistibly be convicted, that these prairies of waving 
green, the most luxuriant meadows on earth, were once 
sheets of standing water of considerable depth. Often,” con¬ 
tinues the doctor, “ on entering one of them, you have pre¬ 
sented before you a boundless horizon level as the sea, against 
which seem to strike the green billows of rolling grass; and, 
on either side, the tall forest trees in curvilinear lines extend 
beyond your utmost vision.” 

If you pursue one of these lines, you will soon discover it 
passes in places over ground considerably elevated above the 
level of the prairie. On the sides of these elevated portions 
next the prairie, you see clearly the marks or prints of the 

* Geology. 


308 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


waves; and occasionally, land-slips in pretty good preserva¬ 
tion, occasioned by the underwashing of the water. \ ou will 
regard these long lines of trees, which define these grassy 
realms as occupying, and standing on the shores or beach of 
an ancient lake now become a prairie. 

“ The banks in many places on which these trees stand, look 
rugged from the accumulations they contain of the remains 
of Oceanic Testacea , among which are many of the pectina¬ 
ted, buccinoidal , turbinated forms, the univalve and bivalve 
Molusca. The soil of the prairie itself is evidently highly 
calcarious; seems to be largely composed of the ruins of these 
shells, many of which still lie beneath the ground, and are 
strewn over the surface; and some look so new and fresh, 
especially of the species Ostrea edulis , one would be tempted 
to think the sea had but just recently retired.” 

Nearly the whole face of Alabama evinces, at a time not 
remote, it has been the subject of great geological changes. 
It is the floor of the sea recently raised up, and become dry 
land; and these prairies were the holes or deeper bottoms of 
the sea, which, when upheaved, became lakes; and were at 
length dried or filled up by the deposits of the streamlets 
which fell into them. According to the observations of Dr. 
Little just cited, the traces of the channels of many of these 
streamlets, which flowed into these lakes, are still very dis¬ 
cernible. 

We know Celsius, a Swedish philosopher of the last 
century, avowed the opinion, that the waters of the Baltic 
and Northern Ocean were subsiding, and the land gaining. 
Linnaeus espoused the same views; and, quite recently, Pres. 
Lyell has given the subject a thorough examination, and 
convinced himself of the truth of this land elevation, which 
extends from Gothenburg to Torneo, and across to the North 
Cape; a distance of more than 1000 miles. Its breadth is 
uncertain, though it reaches across the Gulf of Bothnia, and 
probably extends far into Sweden and Finland. If this 
elevation progress, the Gulf of Bothnia will all one day be 
converted into dry land ; and like our Alabama, will become 
a country interspersed with green prairies. Already Von 


CAUSES OF. 


309 


Buch has seen in Norway, and about Uddevalla, masses of 
shells projecting from the hills far above the present level of 
the sea, resembling, in their situation, those I have described 
above, garnishing the margins of the Alabama prairies. 

If, therefore, by an upheaving movement, these beautiful 
lands of Alabama have been raised from the bottom of the 
sea, narrowing up the Gulf of Mexico, we know that soils are- 
redeemed from the waters by deltaic agency; and as above, 
our great northern lakes may, in time, produce subsistence 
to augment the number of our future countrymen, when 
much of the old soil shall have gone to waste. 

May I say, en passant , since the same causes of change 
are everywhere in operation, when the geology of Florida, 
Georgia, Alabama, the southwestern States generally, shall 
be cultivated like that of Europe now, many dark problems 
will instantly be solved; and the history of truth and our 
world make a sadden and unexampled advancement. 

Our southern universities, quiet and at ease on this subject, 
have opened before them a stupendous theatre for the achieve¬ 
ment of glory. By a brisk movement, they may snatch the 
radiant diadem of knowledge and wisdom from the gray hairs 
of the old w T orld, or will they suffer, at last, strangers to come 
among us, gather up the ripe fruit, and carry off to other 
countries the jewels, the precious ornaments, which right¬ 
fully ought to grace the beautiful person of our Columbia, 
the mistress, hallowed divinification of our soil? 

As European geology has done for the subappenine beds, 
the Jury, and other cacuminal ranges, when ours shall rise, it 
will contrast the shells and other remains scattered over and 
buried in our lands wdth existent species in the neighboring 
seas; and obtain paleontologic data, by which, among other 
things, to explore the periods of formation. 

The author has been permitted to see but very few of the 
prairie-shells of Alabama. These correspond exactly, being 
only a little larger in size with those of similar species brought 
from Apalachie Bay, the shores of the Atlantic, and Mexican 
Gulf. From all the information he can obtain, he believes 
there are none of these fossil shells, but what have their liv- 

26 * 


310 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


ing congeners in the mother waters, which wash against the 
shores of the country. 

The freshness of the traces of the sea almost everywhere; 
the brightness, newness of the shells, especially of those of 
the O. edulis, as I have noticed, their exact similitude with 
those in the adjacent seas—all the phenomena—would point 
to an epoch, very near our own time, when Alabama rose 
above the waves to give them new boundaries—to an epoch 
not many centuries anterior to the advent of the original 
discoverer. 

2. Earthquakes .—If they disorganize, break loose the 
great ligaments of countries, convulse, and dash the whole 
or some parts into the bottom of the sea with all the lives, 
monuments of art, works of valuable industry, their tendency 
is, suddenly or in progressive time, to raise up other lands 
from the floor of the deep, and present them fertile abodes 
to the living they destroyed in their former action. 

Thus, if nature strikes with a heavy blow on one part 
of her organic kingdom, in her management of material 
changes, she returns kindly with a compensatory move¬ 
ment, and fills up full again the cup of vitality she had 
emptied. 

3. Volcanic ruptures. 

—Curvis immugiit iEtna cavernis— 

—Horrificis juxta tonat iEtna ruinis, 

Interdumque atram prorumpit ad astherea nubem 
—Attolitque globos flamarum, et sidera lambit. 

In her greatest torments, madness, man is not afraid of 
nature. He still lights up the halls of mirth, lives on the 
very spots where he has so often witnessed her most awful 
struggles, and seen his generations buried suddenly in se¬ 
pulchres of fire. 

“ About the base of iEtna,” says Pres. Lyell, with all tra¬ 
vellers, “ is a delightful region of country, well watered, 
thickly inhabited, and covered with olives, vines, corn, fruit 
trees, and aromatic shrubs.” Higher up the mountain still, 
are extensive forests, where numerous flocks feed on luxu¬ 
riant grass. 


CAUSES OF. 


311 


If the countries subject to volcanoes and earthquakes, 
fretful, twin-born powers of disorganization, when once 
destroyed, had remained so, to what reduced limits, many 
centuries since, must have been brought our zoography? 
In their paroxysmal burnings, volcanoes throw out their 
molten entrails; often inundate, as is so well known, exten¬ 
sive populous districts; destroy all life; fossilize cities w T ith 
their inhabitants; and leave on fertile lands a sterile, vitrious 
covering. 

But the elements forming this impenetrable covering or 
cement, endowed with active molecular forces, tend to de¬ 
composition. Time, which despises all duration but its 
own, comes in aid. The feeble cryptogames at length come 
too, penetrate it with their sharp roots, assist in pulverizing 
—proof, that “ the weak things of the world are to confound 
the great, and the mighty.” The hardy shrubs and forest 
trees, follow in the train of the cryptogames; and find room 
for their deep roots. 

Thus, again, life marshals her legions about the great 
circumference of this howling desolation, over which once 
swarmed her gay but destroyed millions. And, as if in 
contempt of the convulsive, volcanic thunder amid which 
she bad been defeated, she sends out now the feeblest of all 
her economy to make the first assault. Her strongest forces 
come up in the rear. With the cereal and juicy grasses, 
aromatic herbage, the vine, the olive, the milk-bearing, 
herbivorous races, man comes too. Amid cool and fragrant 
solitudes, he builds his cabin on the tombs of his fathers, 
and forgets the blow which struck them. The rivers hol¬ 
low out new channels to send their irrigating waters; and 
this chasm of organic being, blot of creation, is again smooth 
and even up close to the smoking solfatara. Nay, from the 
increased fertility of the soil, life has gained fresh strength, 
and a more powerful dominion. 

The plain of Malpais, the land of the Andes, where sits 
the noisy Jarullo, the Moluccas, Vesuvius and Somma, Ischia, 
the Phlegrsean Fields, Skaptar Jocul, Stromboli,—are not 
defective in the richness of soil and population. Nay, the 


312 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


volcanic regions of the earth must be regarded as the most 
productive, and abounding in the greatest fulness of life. 
They are store-houses of organizable matter, which need, as 
I may say, only the presence of the plastic, vivifying force 
to pass into the organic forms. In demonstration, that these 
regions abound in the greatest fulness of life, how many he¬ 
catombs of fat oxen, in ancient times, from volcanic Sicily, 
the Sicilian Isles, graced the altars of the Romans? The 
richest blood the armigerous gods of these people ever drank 
came from these districts—the very blood, to the virtue of 
which, they stupidly attributed their conquest and overthrow 
of Jerusalem—an event which had long been foretold by the 
prophets of Israel as the decree of Heaven. Sicily, we know, 
was one of the great granaries of Rome, whose soil, Pliny 
has said, rewards “the laborer an hundred fold,” and the 
flowers of whose shrubs, according to Diodorus, are so pun- 
gently fragrant, that dogs hunting “ lose the scent of the 
game.” We know the most aromatic shrubs, beautiful, high- 
scented flowers, the choicest fruits in the world, grow in such 
districts. The richest, finest wines, seem to derive the very 
warmth, with which they inspire us, from the bosom of the 
volcanic fire. 

Some philosophers love to regard volcanoes as nature’s 
great engines, by which she throws out upon the surface 
again the organizable matters which become uselessly buried 
in the bottom of the seas, and depths of the earth. Thus, 
by restoring the indispensable materials which get beyond 
the reach of organization in geological changes, she sustains 
the equilibrium of her living economy. 

The tendency of most all chemical bodies is to crystalli¬ 
zation under suitable circumstances. Were there no obstacle 
in our world to oppose or react upon this crystallizing attrac¬ 
tion, a larger portion of the alible matters might become 
durably fixed in rocks, and other mineral masses; thus get 
beyond the reach of life, become permanently azootic, and 
the economy suffer. The internal fire of the nucleus of the 
globe radiates constantly to the circumference. The severest 
colds of winter repel it but a short distance below the surface, 
as is manifest from the steady temperature of most of foun- 


CAUSES OF 


313 


tain waters. This fire offers a movement of expansion con¬ 
tinually to all bodies. The local volcanic fire, therefore, 
may co-operate with this fire of the nucleus in opposing 
general solidification; and exert a recuperative movement, 
as before noticed, on the organic kingdom, not only by the 
exhumation of the materials or means, but by preserving 
them chemically within the living domains. 

Inquirers have endeavoured to determine, whether the 
number of volcanoes is increasing, or their tendency is to 
extinction. If the Muse interpret Pythagoras right— 

Nec quae sulfureis ardet fornacibus iEtna 

Ignea semper erit, neque enim fuit ignea semper, 

he did not believe volcanoes have been always burning, or 
that they will continue to burn always. Sniadecki before 
cited, contemplating the highly combustible character of all 
organic bodies, made them the sole origin of volcanoes. Life, 
therefore, being the only cause of all volcanic excitement to 
the earth, her mountains were not shaken or her seas con¬ 
vulsed by fire, until long after the creation; or until such 
bodies had time to accumulate in masses sufficient to undergo 
spontaneous decomposition. These bodies essentially vol- 
caniferous, and nature’s means of future animation, got in 
the depths below, are raised to the surface by their own 
ignific strength. Thus, by this beautiful law, read out in 
clouds, and smoke, and upheaving thunder, she restores the 
equilibrium to her great life through all duration. 

With him accordingly, the greater or less intensity of the 
excitement of volcanoes, must mark the exacerbative activity 
of the universal life, since its spoils are their feeders; or they 
are natural biometers. Contrarily to Pythagoras, then they 
can never cease burning while there is life to supply the 
fuel of their flames. 

The frequency and intensity of submarine volcanic ex¬ 
citements, where the debris of organic bodies must be 
accumulated in the greatest abundance, yield some faint 
support to this specious, but too exclusive hypothesis. His 
words, according to the translation of MM. Ballard and 
Dessaix, which I quote for their fine spirit, are—“ Ces elemens 
de matiere viable, ensevelis dans les entrailles du globe, 


314 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


reparaissent alors a sa surface, avec la puissance impre¬ 
scriptible de repasser par la serie des etres organises, et de 
recommencer de nouveau la vie. C’est ainsi que des maga- 
sins immenses de cette mateire, que la nature retenait, depuis 
des siecles, captive dans ses abimes, et qui semblait avoir 
perdu a jamais la possibility de retourner a F organisation et 
a la vie, profite de sa delivrance, pour s’ elancer dans son 
ancienne carriere. Les volcans sontdonc les grands moyens 
qu’ employe la nature, pour parvenir a cette fin sublime. 
Nous voyons par la combien est grande leur utilite dans la 
composition universelle du globe terrestre; et combien 
importantes leurs fonctions dans F equilibre general.—Sans 
V existence des etres organiques,’’ he continues, “ les volcans 
n’ eussent jamais existe; ils n’ ont da paraitre que tres-tard 
apres la creation du monde. Sans les volcans, cette quantite 
enorme de matiere viable, accumulee chaque jour dans pro- 
fondeurs du globe, et n’ ayant aucun moyen de retour a la 
surface, eut ete, a jamais, perdue pour F organisation et pour 
la vie. Ces pertes se repetant journellement et sans etre 
jamais reparees, le nombre des etres organiques se fut 
diminue dans la meme proportion, et eut fini par perir et 
disparoitre.”* 

4. Too great development of life in one part of the living 
series strikes , 7vith proportional destruction another part in 
various ways . 

The simple place which a plant occupies obviously pre¬ 
vents another from growing there. Every living being, ac¬ 
cording to De Candolle, contends with its fellow for the means 
of subsistence. A species of grass of higher nutrifiable 
powers, and more hardy, introduced into a meadow, will 
perish out the indigenous races, and take possession of the 
soil. If the same care and labor, which are bestowed on 
the meat and milk-bearing species, were lavished in rearing 
the Carnivora, man himself, in the wild havoc, would fall a 
prey to their predacious ferocity. The appetites of plants 
and animals, however, upon a general view of the subject, 
appear to be wonderfully modified, to accommodate the di- 

* Theorie des etres organises, supra citato, p. 133 . 


CAUSES OF. 


315 


versity of the alimentary substances, that they may not be 
in one another’s way in this respect. 

There seems to exist a sort of equilibrium in the great 
living chain, which is essential to the good of the whole; and 
which nature has obviously labored to secure and maintain. 
We must, however, suppose this equilibrium is extremely 
delicate, since this chain, enormous as it is, vibrates easily 
and quickly. Among other causes, it would appear, human 
agency sometimes disturbs its balance. 

5. Human agency. —We read in a reputable author, it 
became fashionable some years since among the Russian 
ladies to ornament their dresses with the beautiful tuft of 
feathers which grew on the head of one of the native spe¬ 
cies of birds. The scalps of these birds in their markets 
became in great demand ; and the birds were eagerly sought 
for, and killed up. Soon their grain crops were attacked, and 
destroyed by an insect which had multiplied prodigiously. A 
frightful famine ensued, and many thousands starved with 
hunger. It was soon discovered, this insect, which through 
famine had destroyed so many human lives, was the food of 
the little creatures they had hunted out of the empire; and 
to their absence its multiplication had been due. The inter¬ 
ference of the government replaced this insectivorous bird, 
and all went on right as before. 

6. Insect life. —In countries where the climate is warm, 
and the soil productive, the hygrometrical states of the atmo¬ 
sphere being favourable, an enormous amount of foliage and 
fruit is produced. The instantaneous explosion of insect 
life is notorious. The invading locusts,* caterpillars appear. 

* Histories and travels are full, and marvellous concerning locusts. Green 
Cyrenaica in Africa has often been devoured by them. St. Augustin mentions 
a locust plague in that country, which destroyed in Masinissa alone 800,000 
persons, besides many more in the districts near the sea. In 591, an army 
of locusts from Africa ravaged Italy, and were thrown into the sea, where 
they produced a pestilence, which carried off nearly a million of men and 
beasts. 

The Venetian territory, 1478, visited by locusts, lost 30,000 persons by 
the famine they occasioned. Their devastations have been great in France, 


316 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


The crops and all the green covering of the earth are devas¬ 
tated for many thousand square miles. The whole country 
is a creeping, flying sea ol life. The herbivorous races 
starve and die. Their work done the destroyers die too. 
The burning rays of the sun pour down unobstructed. Foul, 
febrific contagion goes up to heaven; and the epidemic me- 
teoration scatters with the winds— 

Macies, et nova febrium terris incubuit cohors: 

Famine presses; the snaky Furies of death leap out of the 
horrible, putrefactive mass. The people know not where to 
fly for refuge in the poisoned earth. Wherever they attempt 
to escape, they die by thousands; and, with insatiable fury 
and madness, death continues to rage long in countries far 
distant from the scene of the first desolation. 

7. Other causes. —Paludal exhalations, or exhalations from 
the decomposition of vegeto-animal matters, and idio-mias- 
ma, among external causes, appear to be the most active in 
fixing the rates of accidental death in our world. The epi¬ 
zootic meteoration, to which occasionally so many birds and 
quadrupeds fall victims, must be regarded as having an 
origin similar to that of the paludal or marsh miasma, dif¬ 
fering, perhaps, only in the ratio of atomic combination.* 
Wherever, therefore, the just proportions between the living 
series are lost, or the equilibrium of the great living whole 
interrupted, as in the plethora of insect vitality above, the 
natural causes of death are prodigiously augmented ; hide¬ 
ous famine, murderous pestilence will be born; and the 

Germany, Spain, Italy. To Poland, Russia, Hungary, Arabia, India, and 
some other countries, their return has been periodical. In Poland, Russia, 
Lithuania, it is reported, their bodies were heaped in some places to four 
feet deep. Barrow, in his travels, says, when they were driven into the sea 
by the wind from Southern Africa, “ they formed along the shore for fifty 
miles a bank three or four feet high.” 

* We know a single atom, more or less, in chemical compounds, alters 
greatly their medicinal as their physical properties. Calomel and corrosive 
sublimale, for example, differ much, yet the one possesses only a single 
atom of chlorine more than the other, to which this difference must be 
due. 


REFLECTIONS. 


317 


equilibrium will not be restored without great loss in the 
different members of this series. 

8. The sun. —We may suppose, if I may so speak, the 
sun in traversing the circular ecliptic, arrived at different 
points, vibrates more or less this delicate equilibrium. The 
ancient fathers of nations, in one of these points, placed 
monitively the Scorpion with his poisonous sting. We 
know the countries on which the sun lavishes most of his 
rays, as on the shores of Africa, on either side the Levant, 
have always been the hot-beds, the canabula of the plagues 
which have so repeatedly scourged the world. The sun’s 
action is principally by atmospheric meteoration.—The sea- 
life, mostly hid from observation, no doubt, is subject to simi¬ 
lar exacerbative movements. 

• > i » 

9. Geiieral reflections. —The poets, we know, had the 
honor of being the first historians of nature. Animated, 
spiritualized by the charm and brilliancy of their ancient 
theology, they bestowed on the earth, then the abode of both 
gods and men, the greatest fecundity; covered it with the 
most delightful climate of unvarying temperature; and 
deluged it with savory fruits and flowers. The main am¬ 
bition of their Muse was to embellish the reign and glory of 
Chronos, in doing which, they filled the world with classi¬ 
cal fragrance and sweetness, a living harmony it can never 
lose. 

These same poets speak of wild herbs, acorns, berries and 
such fruits, the earliest products of the earth, as being the 
food of the first men; and of their battles, as fought with 
clubs. 

Nec ullis 

Saucia vomeris, per se dabat omnia te lus : 

Contentique cibis nullo cogente creatis, 

Arbuteos foetus, montanaque fraga legebant 
Cornaque, et in duris haerentia mora rubetis, 

Et, quae deciderant patula Jovis arbore, glandes.* 

Now since, from long experience, the native soil of any 
country not subject to deflation or any of the like local, 
renovating causes, does not grow any deeper, but remains 

* Ovid, lib. i. p. 102, Metamor. 


318 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


always pretty much the same,* we may not suppose the 
earth was any more fertile in the olden annals or age of 
Saturn, than at the present; or the fruits it bore, any more 
delicious and nutritive. Few of them are adapted to human 
subsistence. Most all have derived their flavors and nutri¬ 
tive properties from the transforming agency of man. By 
diligent cultivation the sloe has become the plumb; the crab, 
the orchard apple; the green, bitter Brassica Oleracea , the 
white-headed cabbage. We know not what changes culti¬ 
vation has wrought on our Indian corn, and the other cerea- 
lia. The native country even of but few of them is known; 
for wheat and barley, modern conjecture is simply in favor 
of Palestine. 

Since, therefore, fecundity is subordinate to food, we can¬ 
not suppose those nations who sat down to feast at tables 

* When I first explored, some years since, just as the Indians were re¬ 
tiring, Western Georgia, where I now reside, I was struck with the great 
variety of native soil untouched by the plough. In some plains, and on top 
of some hills, it was rich; in other places, the same descriptions of surface, 
poor. The whole country was enveloped in a thick covering of luxuriant 
grass, and overspread with towering forest trees. 

Here, I reflected, are fair examples of nature’s method of creating and 
preserving soils. Here annually is deposited a dense layer of vegetable mat¬ 
ters—has been deposited with animal remains from all antiquity. Why has 
this soil remained stationary ; or rather, from these continued decompositions, 
why has it not grown to an impenetrable depth? 

We know, on analysis, vegetable substances yield hydrogen, oxygen and 
carbon. Two of these are the base of water; the other united with oxygen 
is a volatile gas absorbable by water. From their volatility and solubility— 
their active affinities,—they cannot be permanently fixed in soils; nor for the 
same reason, the more complex elements of animal bodies. 

It is then contrary to the laws regulating soils from the zootic ruins, to 
augment them thus in perpetuo. Nay, it would seem, nature has a more 
valuable use for these precious materials; she gathers them up promptly 
when dispersed by death, and by successive reorganizations, keeps them 
continually active in her living economy. 

It is, therefore, not probable the soil pressed by the huge feet of Hercules 
bearing his war-club, or the woodlands of ancient Greece and Italy, where 
the reign of Saturn threw the poets laureates of after ages into a sea of tune¬ 
ful pleasure, were more fertile than similar soils of our epoch ; or the acorns, 
and other wild fruits they bore, more delicious and alimentary than the same 
fruits now on the living trees. 


REFLECTIONS. 


319 


strewn with acorns, were populous; or those bands who 
w T arred with clubs, were mighty in numbers. And since 
knowledge and the civil arts create mainly the aliments* on 
which man subsists, and the invention and progress of these 
have been slow, we may regard the mighty armies, and bat¬ 
tles we read in tradition, and early history, as more or less 
fabulous. 

We know the aboriginal population of our frugiferous 
America, possessed of but a few rudimental arts, was very 
thin in relation to territory, as I have already noticed; and 
making just allowance for the decided superiority of some 
of the races, we have no reason to believe the nomades, who 
first wandered over Asia and Europe, excelled them in this 
respect. But that man in his numbers principally subsists 
by his own resources, needs no proof. 

The same restraints, which hinder the augmentation, and 
expansion of our own species, do not apply with equal force 
to any other of the orders of life. Every green leaf, blade 
of grass or fruit, is a festival board to myriads of them. 
Many of them, furious in the movement of their generations, 
rich in the means of emigration, with the supply of food, 
themselves not becoming food, might, at an early hour after 
creation, have overspread and taken possession of all the 
appropriate borders of the earth. Even with all the impe¬ 
diments, we may suppose, many of the living species soon 
reached the limits of possible extension. And the number 
of these in the most ancient times, may be considered as 
equaling or excelling the number existing at the actual time. 

But man—unlike these species—tedious in his uterine 
life; uniparous; slow in his metamorphosis to manhood and 
fecundity; slow in his changes to the hollow features, and 
the gaunt form to which natural death only has titles; cook¬ 
ing, machinating, the means of alimentation mainly in him¬ 
self —must evolve slowly; and his population in antiquity, 
be in great disproportion to the recent annals. 

* On the relation of food to arts and industry, forbid to us, the labors of 
Smith, Malthus, Ganilh, Stewart, Storch, Ricardo, Sismondi, Say—have 
expanded much precious light. 


320 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


La Mark, however, and his school could find no difficulty 
in crediting tradition in the myriads of men, who inhabited 
the ancient earth. For, since they find our primitive model, 
the ferus ho?no, in one of the Quadrumani ,* which feed 
from the hands of nature like other beasts, they could have 
multiplied without the restraints that attach to us. But 
this animal, the gradual mutations of which to humanity 
La Mark has so patiently, talentedly, described, is shown 
by W. Lawrence and other zoologists not to be the pains¬ 
taking plodding creature of our species. Though faintly 
imitated in these animals, the modern labors of comparative 
anatomists abundantly evidence, that our humanity organic, 
intellectual, and moral, occupies a place alone by itself in 
nature. The world has repeatedly shown, that great eru¬ 
dition and talents can bow submissively, and pay homage to 
the silly idolatry of empty hypothesis. 

From the varied manner of reproduction, the modified 
perfection of emigrating power, and other causes, it is rea¬ 
sonable the different species would reach the maximum of 
the possible population the earth would support, at periods 
of time more or less separated from one another. No time 
being necessary to be consumed in developing their instincts, 
and creating the means of support, each species, in an order 
proper to it, would reach this maximum in a period vastly 
shorter than would be possible for our own. Man born to 
dominion disputes with nature every inch of ground his 
population is permitted to occupy; and his numbers increase 
nearly in proportion, cceteris paribus , to the ratio, in which 
he brings forth the rich treasures of his genius. 

Ancient Britain, and the countries of Europe, for instance, 
subsisted almost entirely on the produce of their own soil. 
But how many millions in commercial England, and the 


* Dr. A. Clarke, Commentaries on the Bible, regards one of these Quad¬ 
rumani as the very serpent which was instrumental in bringing “death into 
our world with loss of Eden, and all our wo.” If, therefore, La Mark be 
correct, it was only one of Eve’s wicked brethren, who, by his cunning and 
artful eloquence, achieved her disobedience and foul seduction. Philosophia 
audax! 


REFLECTIONS. 


321 


European states, now live on the bread of foreign lands, 
their improved knowledge enables them to create. And, 
since knowledge is now more abundant and varied than at 
any past time of history; and since much land washed by 
different seas, and a new world have been discovered, we 
should think the number of our race in the actual ,annals 
is much superior to that of all former periods. 

From the tardiness of our inventive powers, to which 
alimentation is subordinate, offering as it does, an obstacle 
to our multiplication like other creatures, it is probable for 
a long time the nations immediately descended from the 
first parents did not occupy much territory very distant 
from Eden. And, for the same reason, after the deluge, 
much time was consumed before they became numerous in 
the accessible parts of the earth. That man at first increased 
slowly, and brutes rapidly, is proven from the fact that all 
the venerable monuments, and ancient traditions, which 
have been preserved, are full in strange accounts of giants, 
monsters, huge serpents as Typhon, and other savage colos¬ 
sal forms of life, which overran all countries. The wars 
which men and gods waged against these furious homicidal 
beasts, caused the first lyre to be strung; and the exploits 
of heroism which overcame them, next to cosmogony, con¬ 
stituted the most brilliant materials of the ancient song. 

But to conclude these reflections.—It is clear from what 
has been advanced—in the destruction of inhabited lands 
by volcanoes, earthquakes, inundations, and other extermi¬ 
nating causes, and in the redemption and renovation of in¬ 
habitable soils, the great action of the vivifying force is sub¬ 
jected to occasional contractions, and expansions, or quick 
vibrations;—that nature is conducting her numerous pro¬ 
geny through varied fortunes, and perilous vicissitudes;— 
and, that while all the inferior races may have long since 
reached the utmost fulness of their life, man may yet still 
definitely increase. 


322 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


SECTION IV. 

HYPOTHESIS OF THE REVIVESCENCE AND INDEFINITE DURATION OF THE 

ORGANIC, PLASTIC NATURE IN US. 

* » 

The spring of mental activity resides manifestly in the 
organism. The nature in us which feels, knows, and the 
nature which so artfully organizes, and keeps the body in 
motion, exist, in the actual order, in indissoluble union. 
The efforts of the one never take place in the absence of 
the other. Why, then, have philosophers supposed, any 
events of futurity will necessitate the disseverment of this 
union; that this original order of creation will ever be 
changed, and all the conditions of activity be concentrated 
in the mind? or why have they vindicated the immortality 
of the one, and not that of the other ? 

Since neither that which lives nor which thinks is of tan¬ 
gible form, reason sees nothing in the one more than the 
other to insure duration, yet the separate immortality of the 
soul is of ancient faith. Death, which is an evanescent 
phenomenon not properly profounded, has, probably, been 
the cause of this partiality or preference that has been given 
to the mind. I will offer here some considerations in favor 
of an equal immortality for the cause which organizes the 
body and keeps in play the functions—for the nature essen¬ 
tially vital in us. 

We know not where nature will end her long and toil¬ 
some course; or whether the changes she is hereafter to 
experience will be greater and more eventful than those 
through which she has already passed:—Or we know r not 
Creative Power producing, supporting, or remodeling the 
physical laws. Yet we are certain from revealed testimony 
our species have every thing at concern—will be altogether 
interested in the events of an indefinite futurity. 

Besides our own sacred books, the chronicles of all ancient 
nations—the Puranas, the prophecies, and sacred pgeans of 
Vishnu, the Zendavesta, the discourses of the Edda, the 
songs of the Voluspa, all speak of a future fiery cataclysm; 


CAUSE OF ORGANIC LIFE, IMMORTAL. 323 

fr actus illabitur terrarum orbis, of the gliding away of the 
broken orb of the world; when the extinguished generations 
of men will ascend on “ camels of snowy wings'’ to the Para¬ 
dise of the virgins of dark-flowing locks; to the pleasant 
shade of the oak of “never-failing verdure;” to the pure 
“ garden of delicious ideasto the blissful, bowery fields of 
Elysium; to the city of Midgard or of friendship, the joy of 
woman’s immortal beauty; to “ the Halls of festival pleasure 
above,” where echo the voices of love; to the celestial city 
of the pure and just, of 11 the blood-washed throng or go to 
the “scorching South;” to “the Lake” of fierce raging 
flames, of spiteful serpents; to the gloomy, sultry plains of 
“burning Tartarus;”—O beautiful, rising idea of Chris¬ 
tianity ! fair, transcendent above them all!—“ blood-washed 
throng ”—purified from the dross of the world for the love, 
union of God; lead me where thy waters flow pure infi¬ 
nitely above Helicon’s sung by Grecian Muse, known only 
to the harps of Zion; conduct me to Him, who made me in 
love, in love receives me from the tomb! 

This idea of the future distress and calamity of our world, 
of impending destiny, is written ineffaceably in the heart of 
man; he thinks of it, wears it always in his bosom. In 
whatever country or age you examine him, you will find it 
inscribed in his hieroglyphics; written on his tombstones; 
columns, obelisks, statues, pillars, temples—left in the re¬ 
cords he has made. His immortality in disproportion to 
him here, seeks utterance, marks its compendious image on 
the shadowy forms of matter which surround him; and 
seems to wait impatiently for the immensity in which it is 
to plunge. 

Before drawing on the resources of reason, I may submit 
the argument, and declaration of Divine philosophy. 

A<pgov cfU 6 ari o-u ^coortoiftVai, sav /xtj arto^avif. Ka& 6 <hj -to 

(SZ/ACt fo yevqrsopsvov 6r(SLg£i$ aM.a yv/Jirov x'°X ov >—fiwjita 4 v%txov , sytigs- 
lav Owjita uvev/jiaT?ixoV' 

In this untombing or general exhumation of our race, and 
transition from one to the other life, from the anatomical 


* Corinthians, chapter xy. 


324 


VITAL REVOLUTIONS. 


elements of the animal body death destroyed, an organic, 
spiritual body is evolved. 

1. Gu t ua, corruptus, corpus, from corrumpo, I break—sus¬ 
ceptible of breaking—frangibility, the general mode of exist¬ 
ence to all the forms of matter, is the idea, par excellence 
of body. 4 <v X ixov animate, anima, animus, 4^, I breathe 
—respiratory, is the general mode of existence to all lives. 
By the laws of nature, the forms of all matter, as just inti¬ 
mated, both mineral and organic, are destructible, more or 
less evanescent; but their elements remain permanent, and 
incapable of change. All organic bodies live only through 
their intercourse with the atmosphere, by continual respira¬ 
tion or vital oxydation; this process suspended, they die. 
Consequently, the universal destructibility of bodies, and the 
oxydizement by respiration of all that live—essence of ani¬ 
mality—constitute the radical ideas, the net conception of 
the ^vxixov. 

It is this 4 , v X txov # — this breathing, frangible, corrupti¬ 

ble form of matter, animal, “ natural body, as in our trans¬ 
lation, which is sown or deposited in the tomb as the grain 
in the ground; and which, by the operation of new laws, I 
know not that I may say of nature, becomes, and is raised a 
spiritual body in imitation of the stalk from the dead grain. 

2. Animal body. In the actual order of the world, I have 
shown in a preceding part of this work, that the organs of 
all lives are evolved in strict and unalterable relation to the 
properties, qualities and habitudes of the external forms of 
matter, which constitutes inhabitableness. In its renovation 
this body is no longer 4 ^*ov or animal. It has lost its ties, 
its adaptations to these external, material forms, which made 
it animal. The sources of its vitality are no longer in them; 
their rapid movements through space—the exertion of their 

* At the time of the translation of our Scriptures, the medical philosophers 
divided all bodies into two classes, natural and nonnatural. Hence we may 
suppose this word, which means animal , was translated natural. Natural 
applies now equally to all kinds of bodies; animal , to only a certain class. 
From this change of nomenclature or language, this translation will be apt 
to be misunderstood by the common reader. 



CAUSE OF ORGANIC LIFE, IMMORTAL. 325 

active forces could stir no life in it now. The respiratory, 
food-taking, frangible body, which died, is changed in the 
renovation into a “ spiritual body .” The mechanism of its 
vitality is changed. This body looks out beyond the forms 
of matter for alimentation. They have grown useless; and 
after having out-endured, all our ages perish too. Lost all 
equilibrium, their imponderable agents rage in ignipotency; 
their attractions prostrate, and they struggle hard in their 
great death. 

3. Ttvsvnattxov. This is the body of the new life. Body 
as we have seen, which means the corruptible or destructible 
forms of matter, when applied to the forms or constitutions 
of any other sort of being, would carry with it the essential 
idea of their destroyable nature. The inspired author arrests 
this idea in the expression, “this corruptible,” (meaning 
body,) “must put on incorruption”—a state not to be broken 
to pieces. The organic elements of this body, therefore, 
unlike all the living bodies of nature being immovably fixed, 
it is immortal. I have already shown these elements in our 
present bodies will not remain in fixed situation, and that 
death occurs through the failure and overthrow of the living, 
chimifying force incompetent to immortality. 

Gtnvixattxov — spiritale —spiritus— *vevp* —tsvfco, I breathe. These 
elements, as I may say, are permanently breathed , nutrified 
—are vital per se. They live naturally, or live of themselves; 
and differ precisely from those of our bodies now, which 
obtain life only by assimilation, respiration, and numerous 
other functions, which the connection of our lives with mat¬ 
ter necessitates, and which may be considered as only an 
affair of our world. This life, like the body, is, can but be 
immortal. 

The parallel between the two bodies and lives commencing 
A<pgov, O thou insane, simpleton! is between the sowing and 
vegetation of grain. If the grain do not die, the future stalk 
and ear will not appear. But these are not the grain itself 
which was sowed; they have only sprung from it. Like 
the sowed grain, from our entombed bodies, new ones will 
come forth, which will not be they themselves. But they 


326 


MIND. 


are sequences the one of the other, since, if the grain does 
not die, it is not “ quickened.” 

The radical words 4^ and which characterize the 
two lives, we have seen, both convey the same idea of 
breath or breathing. It is the respirationis entitas , living lire, 
which the words likewise mean, bestowed on us by Divine 
Creation, which organizes our bodies here—makes the cor¬ 
ruptible matter of the world live in them, that will enjoy life 
hereafter united with bodies modeled after its own nature. 
It is the imperishable breath of the Almighty pushing man 
through his generations, over the gulf of death, and landing 
him good in his own eternal sojourn. 

Naturally immortal, this nature essentially vital in us, 
which is transmitted in generation, which bows in obedience 
to the revolutions of matter, vibrates rapidly and quickly 
from its adverse influences, quiets in the tomb, will one day, 
the soul united with it being pure, mount over the broken 
orb of the world to unchangeable tranquillity and fulness. 


CHAPTER IX. 

MIND. 

4 ' 

The branch of natural history, which the mind forms, 
has been cultivated with the greatest ardor and interest since 
the early annals of philosophy and science. Seen in the 
light of time, none exhibits a greater diversity of discordant 
phases. It would appear, the mind in studying itself has 
been more doubtful, as to the true nature of its own phe¬ 
nomena than of those of any other being in nature. Its 
ability to profound itself appears every way limited. This 
we may conceive to arise from the infinite relations it sus¬ 
tains with the universe, the complete philosophy of which, 
beyond its resources, would be necessary to the full compre¬ 
hension of its own. In this universe it is only, simply a 



DISTINGUISHED BY THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF ITS ACTS. 327 

part of a great system of forces of reciprocal action, to which 
its phenomena are due. 

In the preceding chapters of this hook, we have contem¬ 
plated some of these relations, forces, which are nearest 
home, and which exert the most direct and energetic influ¬ 
ence in the causation of its phenomena. Thus, in our man¬ 
ner of study, its subject properly falls here to discussion. 

To mention none of the changes or history of the science, 
recorded in a thousand w r orks, at the actual time, it is the 
fashion of a host of philosophers to look on all the mental 
phenomena as simply the acts of the encephalon. Such 
acts only stimulate to such phenomena, or are the conditions. 


SECTION I. 

MIND, INCONSCIOUS OF THE VITAL ACTS, ITS IMPELLING FORCES, AND 

DISTINCT. 

The power, which evolves the embryon, impresses on it 
the human shape, unfolds the organs gradually to manhood, 
conducts them through the series of changes to decay and 
death—the power, which decomposes aliment, occasions its 
absorption, distributes it through the nutritive apparatus it 
has formed to all the capillary system, undoes the organs, 
and finally achieves its assimilation to their structures pre¬ 
serving their specific forms, cannot be the power in me, which 
feels, thinks, wills, judges, and reasons. 

I am entirely conscious that I feel, think, will; but not 
that the blood is circulating through my body, the substance 
of its organs is removing and replacing. The motions of 
secretion, absorption, exhalation—the acts of the Nisus For- 
mativus, which drew out from the germ the human form 
divine, first moulded the tissues, combined them into organs, 
further combined them into apparatuses and systems, gave 
them separate forces, united them for special functions, uni¬ 
ted them further still into one great reciprocal movement, 
conducts in, presides over all their changes, strike not our 
intelligence. The great and multiform labors of this Nisus, 


328 


MIND. 


as Blumenbach. delights to call it, are achieved in the com¬ 
plete absence of the moi; and m ust be separate and distinct 
from it in its being. Before even the operative existence of 
the moi, it labors, prepares for it in the maternal womb, the 
evolutionary and active theatre. 

Nay, so far from the moi or mind being conscious of the 
acts of the plastic agent, it has now for several thousand 
years been steadily looking with astonishment—has spent 
these laborious years in examining the labors of this agent, 
and contrived myriads of pleasing, illusory theories, to satis¬ 
fy itself of the manner of their achievement. These labors, 
which many philosophers will still identify as its own, re¬ 
main hid from it; and must ever remain more or less so. 
The unparalleled advance of philosophical anatomy, since 
the age of Bordeu and Bichat just passing, proves the asser¬ 
tion. 

The mind of itself is conscious of all its own acts; it is 
only conscious of other beings when impressed by their acts .— 
No other being of nature enjoys this high, sublime preroga¬ 
tive; this peculiarity identifies, characterizes it among all 
others. To confound, therefore, the vital and intellectual 
acts, or what is the same thing, not to distinguish between 
them, is to confound all language. 

It is manifest, all the phenomena of the sensible universe 
originate in, appertain to three immovable, fundamental 
causes, or matter, life, and intelligence, whose forces are 
reciprocal. These phenomena, as we have noticed, are pre¬ 
sented to us, as one unbroken whole; developed in one great 
consecutive action. If you separate this action or locate the 
phenomena, ontologism has become an anathema. The 
French physiological school have corrected the error of on¬ 
tologism in medicine, but in respect to the mind, have fallen 
into the opposite error. Ontologism no doubt has been egre- 
giously abused in all the speculative sciences. But has it 
not a real existence in nature? and ought it not to have in our 
philosophy, since we can distinguish the great active ele¬ 
ments of her constitution. Although, therefore, the acts of 
the moi and plastic agent are presented to us united in one, 


ITS WISDOM IS PECULIAR. 


329 


and we can see nothing to distinguish them, except that the 
moi is conscious of what it does, is it not for the interest of 
science, the distinction* which is so obvious* should be ob¬ 
served ? 


SECTION II. 

WISDOM OF THE MIND IS IN ITSELF, AND DIFFERENT FROM THE WISDOM 
MANIFESTED BY ALL THE OTHER EXISTENCES OF NATURE. 

All beings anticipate futurity in the results of their acts, 
or are wise. They wear this wisdom as their exterior robe. 
On whatever part of the universe we look with attention, 
we can but observe it; it forces itself upon our observation, 
as if to keep us always in remembrance of the elder, Parent 
Wisdom, from which all come, to which all tend. 

In its operations, the vital agent evinces prescience, and 
the most consummate adroitness. It keeps the torrent of ages 
flowing by detaching life from life. It derives the organic 
materials from the variety of external bodies; its first labor 
is to reduce them to a homogeneous mass. Afterwards it 
hollows out from this mass the cylindrical tubes; moulds the 
solid bones; fabricates a variety of tissues, and bestows upon 
them specific forms and properties—the elements of ani¬ 
mality. Some of these forms and properties, all especially 
originated, it combines to oppose the innate forces of matter, 
direct them into new channels of action, or unite with those 
of its own economy. Others it groups to labor at home, or 
be employed in the immediate concerns of this economy. 
Finally, it combines all the special organs and functions into 
one great, reciprocal movement or function, which completes 
the design of animality —a divine idea. 

This body and movement—truly a microcosm—thus 
formed, exists in nature a separate order of being. It is, as 
I have just represented, the work of the organizing agent, 
one of the great elementary, triple forces of the world, the 
attribute of creation. For the wisdom and skill it evinces 
simply in cicatrizing wmunds, knitting together broken bones, 


330 


MIND. 


arresting mortal hemorrhage, cruel disease, and death, the 
fathers of medical antiquity erected it into a female divinity; 
and paid homage under the title of Vis Medicatrix. 

The most excellent attributes of wisdom must undoubtedly 
belong to the work. But is the worker itself intelligent, 
skilful, prescient?—Does it feel, perceive its own acts; their 
relations, dependencies in causation—know what it does? 
If in the affirmative—the molecular forces impress on the 
bodies they evolve the same properties; on the crystals, the 
same modal forms: the attractions, which impel the stars in 
heaven, conduct them forever through the same unvarying 
series of results; and, for the same reason, must likewise be 
intelligent. 

But the mind differs from these governing forces of life 
and matter. It is inclined too to travel through the same 
series of phenomena, as is obvious from the inspection of our 
sciences. But in any given period it will vary from the 
beaten track, is full of originality; and does not move through 
time the same unvarying quantity. It alone knows its own 
acts, measures out their proportions and dependencies,—is 
alone intelligent; and varies the direction of its movements 
and order of results. To this consciousness of what it does," 
and ability to direct its own efforts, are due all the sciences, 
and primarily all the arts. 

If the organizing force, like the mind, enjoyed this con¬ 
sciousness—the wisdom, prescience it displays were origi¬ 
nal endowments—long since, it would have abandoned the 
monotony of the first formations, and presented new inven¬ 
tions of vitality. In shaping and compiling the materials 
for animation, it would have comprehended the proportions 
and dependencies of function on structure, the special and 
general uses of all the living parts; penetrated the original 
conceptions—theory—of the first formation; and set up 
models after its own order. For, if the vital force were so 
gifted, we see nothing in nature which offers absolute limits 
to either the forms or length of the living chain. And, if 
the ruling forces of matter were endowed, as we have sup¬ 
posed, they would have bestowed new properties, and new 


I 


ITS WISDOM IS PECULIAR. 331 

crystalline forms on the bodies subject to their modifications, 
and conducted the oranodesic spheres through new routes in 
space. 

Like the forms of organic and anorganic bodies—the forms 
of lives and of worlds—the sciences and arts of living men, 
were not of original creation. From a tabula rasa the mind 
has advanced in strength until it has brought them forth. 
They are new to the original creation, creatures which have 
truly sprung from it. It is by this precious faculty of 
knowing what it does, trusted to none other here, that it 
has founded itself a creator. The organizing force, from a 
tabula rasa , has not advanced, and established the forms of 
the actual living series, as some philosophers of ancient as 
of modern times have literally pretended to sustain. They 
needed—were fashioned at first by divine art, and placed 
on the route of generations, through which this force simply 
impels them. Nor from chaos did worlds spring; they 
were lifted from it into their orbits, in which the use of 
their forces is to sustain their motions. 

The knowledge, wisdom—acts of intelligence—manifested 
by the formative and conservative forces of living bodies, of 
all material existences, can only be impressions permanently 
made on their contrivance , or the acts of creation continuing 
in them, while the mind is permitted to create for itself, 
which is its crowning distinction. It continually makes 
new efforts, engages in new enterprises, and modifies its 
products. All other existences remain, have always re¬ 
mained stationary in the perfection of their achievements; 
their perfection is unchangeable. In the fortunes of society, 
it continually advances or recedes from perfection. It enjoys 
peculiar relations with the Divine Being, is esteemed pecu¬ 
liar by Him; and, by the gift of knowing trusted to it, is 
commanded to gain knowledge; and make its way through 
the compages of the world, which immerses it to His paternal 
home. 

The action of the external world and of the living organ¬ 
ism, the transmitting medium, is indispensable to all its 
activity, and claims next to be considered. 


332 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


CHAPTER X. 

MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

How do we perceive external objects?—what is it we 
perceive ? Plato, with his illustrious master, and the philo¬ 
sophers descended from him, maintain, it is copies, pictures 
or images; simulacra , prototypes, divine patterns, after which 
all the material forms were modeled, which immediately 
excite sensation, and are the objects of perception. These 
simulacra primordial to the universe, through which God 
beholds all things at once, as present, and existing in him¬ 
self, are immortal and unchangeable, and the causes of all 
knowledge and science to us. Being the true, and faithful 
resemblances of all the material forms of the world and alone 
perceptible, the mind’s perceptions of them, therefore, must 
ever correspond, harmonize as much as if these forms were 
directly perceived. 

Maddened by contemplations of theocracy, the morbidly 
spiritual Malebranche, and his sect, too gross and volumi¬ 
nous, could see in nature nothing but the movements and 
displays of theocratical power. They could but behold all 
external objects, as instruments in the hands of the omni¬ 
potent Creator, with which be stimulates the senses, when 
he desires to communicate to the mind such ideas and per¬ 
ceptions as are suitable and proper for it. Thus He becomes 
the visual theatre, or a sort of demiurgic mirror, in which 
we see all things. “ II est absolument necessaire,” says 
Malebranche, “que Dieu ait en lui-meme les idees de tous 
les etres qu’ il a crees, puisque antrement il id aurait pas pu 
les produire; et qu’ ainsi il voit tous ces etres en considerant 
les perfections qu’ il renferme auxquells ils ont rapport,—il 
est certain que 1’ esprit peut voir ce qu’ il y a dans Dieu, 
qui represente les etres crees—peut voir en Dieu les ouv- 
rages de Dieu.”*—The prototypic simulacra of all the in- 

* Recherches de la verite—tom. ii, p. 96. See this whole passage, and 
argument. 


333 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

dividual things in the universe existent always iu the Divine 
mind—the simulacra of Plato, it is plain, are what God 
communicates to the mind in sensation in the Malebranchian 
view, and which communicated constitute the mind’s seeing 
of all things in Him. There exists but a shadow between 
the two hypotheses; they are virtually the same. 

Contrarily to these views of the mechanism of the mental 
phenomena, Dr. Reid, ambitious, and occupying one of the 
most respectable chairs then in all Europe, and, too, when 
much light had just been expanded on all the sciences from 
the flambeau Bacon had held up, boldly elevated himself 
He struck at Plato, and all the luxuriant scions* * * § which had 
sprung from his maternal or radical idea. He took the only 
ground of originality then unoccupied, to which, however, 
Prof. T. Brown, who ultimately succeeded him in the same 
chair, disputed his titles.f 

He taught in general terms;— It is the external objects 
themselves , the mind directly perceives through the senses. 

In support of his new views, he passionately invoked the 
common sense of mankind. He erected this sense into a vis 
regulans; and, in his zeal and devotion to it, if not entirely 
successful, fell not very far short of its actual apotheosis. 
His friends paid prompt homage! to the Deule of which he 
had just broken the laboring shell. His critics and adver¬ 
saries sat in judgment upon him ; denied the existence of a 
sense common to mankind; and challenged him for proof.§ 
All the illiterate adopt him; the learned are divided. “I 
do not,” says Dr. Good|| quaintly, alluding to this common 
sense theory, ‘Hike these northern lights;” meaning to illus¬ 
trate by the temporary flashings of the Aurora Borealis. 

Dr. Reid’s views, it may be considered, were suggested 
by the then recent history of the mind. The Schoolmen 
had made of its study a system of subtleties; and carried it 

* Vid. Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, vol. i.—passim. 

| In his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. 

£ Vid. Oswald’s Appeal to Common Sense in behalf of Religion. 

§ Vid. Priestley’s Examination of Reid, Beattie and Oswald. 

|| In his Book of Nature. 


28 * 


334 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


beyond the visible limits of the world. He threw himself 
into the opposite scale or extreme, and became their anti¬ 
pode, with the hope, we may suppose, of bringing it back 
whence they had displaced it, or to its right place. To pre¬ 
sent, however, the curious monuments of metaphysics, time 
has spared; explore the labyrinth of opinions, and the 
causes, which led to their espousal, I have said, is not ours. 
We may say, with some exceptions, since the age of Bacon 
and Descartes, views of this sort, as of all others, have 
been improving; and, could light have sprung from pure 
abstractions, the toil of fancy, isolated contemplations on the 
agent itself of thought, psychology had been equal or in the 
advance of the other sciences. But it was needful it should 
wait until knowledge broke on the immediate conditions, the 
acts of the living structure, which subordinates its pheno¬ 
mena. 

We may never know the union of mind, life and matter, 
the three reciprocal, great, fundamental forces of our world 
—know the manner of perception, or what it is we perceive 
in external objects; or whether the celebrated error of Spi- 
nosa, Leibnitz, Kant, Plato, Reid, Berkeley or the Male- 
branchian fable be true history. But we know the mind 
does not perceive external objects until they first impress 
our senses. If, therefore, all motion were suspended in mat¬ 
ter, and the organism and mind could remain untouched, 
during the suspension, we should continue perfectly insen¬ 
sible, unconscious of all such objects, although in our very 
presence. 

1. The action itself, then, of all external bodies is indis¬ 
pensable to their perception; and their continual percepti¬ 
bility, while in the intercourse of our senses, is proof that 
they exist in unremitting activity. 

During bouleversemens —asphyxia — syncopation—when 
the action of the organism is more or less completely sus¬ 
pended, the mind is perfectly insensible to all external 
objects.* 

* Twenty years ago now, I attended an adult patient attacked violently 
with the autumnal, bilious fever then raging. The paroxysms observed the 


f 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


335 


2. The action, then, likewise of the organism is indispen¬ 
sable to all perception; and all progressive perception, as the 
succession of all mental phenomena, is evidence, that this 
organism remains in continued effort during the manifesta¬ 
tion of such perception, and phenomena.—Or, in other words, 
there exists no immediate union between the mind and ma¬ 
terial universe, the actions of bodies alone not being compe¬ 
tent to cause consciousness in us. 

most exact periodicity. The patient plethoric, the most active antiphlogistic 
treatment was urged, without even abating the violence of the symptoms. 
About the termination of the fourth paroxysm on the fourth day, the fever 
abating, his forces gave way rapidly, and he appeared to die in a cold and 
viscid perspiration. There was nothing peculiar in the time, or manner of 
his death, for many went this year with precisely all the same symptoms to 
“the narrow house.” 

He was shrouded, 6 o’clock, P. M., and the funeral appointed for the next 
day. Mournfully meditating the ars medicmse falax, and deeply mortified, 
that death should snatch his victim, among the first, from my youthful efforts, 
I threw myself down exhausted to taste sleep in the next chamber. I had 
just read Bichat on Life and Death, and was arranging the order of the mor¬ 
tal symptoms, I had just witnessed, when I remembered, on shrouding two 
hours after death, his feet being raised, his whole body was raised up nearly 
in a straight line. His body, limber at first, had become rigid a little too 
soon for the coldness of the season, and length of time he had expired. 

After all was still, I approached; imposed silence on the friends, who 
watched ; took off the shroud, and the two pieces of silver coin, which had 
been laid on the eye-lids; made every examination; he was certainly dead. 
The body was icy cold; but the rigidity a little too early, might be sus¬ 
pected a vital phenomenon.—Warmth in every practicable manner; friction; 
diffusible stimuli in large doses mechanically introduced; artificial respira¬ 
tion, were administered during the night. At dawn of day, some symptoms 
of returning life; a little after sunrise, was perfect recovery; inanition 13 
hours. 

I interrogated him-—he remembered to have seen others with myself about 
his bed, when a “ dark shadow” came over him—had no consciousness of 
any thing afterwards till the hour of recovery. 

But for similar cases in the history of medicine, I should be doubtful of 
recording this here, of which I have seen nothing similar since. 


336 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


SECTION I. 

ACTION OF EXTERNAL BODIES, AN ELEMENT IN PERCEPTION, AND CAUS¬ 
ATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL PHENOMENA. 

In the actual advance of knowledge, it is impossible to 

0 

appreciate this movement, or universal excitement in matter. 
Approximations, w T e may suppose, even very slight, have 
not been made. All philosophers, however, agree, that con¬ 
tact directly or by intervention, as the rays of light in vision, 
floating corpuscles in olfaction, atmospheric undulations in 
audition, are indispensable to the excitement of the nervous 
organ—to the continuance of this action on to perception. 

The conditions which nature demands on the part of the 
vital economy, that this excitement existing always, and 
universally in matter, be received, transmitted, and become 
perceptions , ideas , volitions , is, as already intimated when 
treating of living mechanics, the soundness of the encepha¬ 
lon, the spinal marrow, and nerves. This soundness, there¬ 
fore, and the actual presence, contact of matter with some 
part of the sentient periphery of the body or great nervous 
organ, are alone indispensable. The actions or sequences, 
which follow, are to us simple facts, taking place by an irre¬ 
ducible law, the secret of creation. 

It belongs, however, to the genius of philosophy always 
discontented with its achievements, to supply all the phe¬ 
nomena of nature with causes, and connect them up smoothly 
in a regular series to her Great Original. Descartes began 
by demanding proof for every thing, pretending to doubt 
even his own existence—“ Quin et ilia etiam, de quibus du- 
bitamus, utile erit habere pro falsis, ut claro clarius, quid- 
nam certissimum et cognitu facillimum sit, inveniamus— 
Nunc itaque cum tantum veritati queerendse incumbamus, 
dubitamus imprimis an ullse res sensibiles aut imaginabiles 
existant. —Some philosophers consider the general truths 
of the universe as hid from our eyes; admit a few things only 
as infallible, certain, and educe from them th§ reason of all 

* Opera Philosophica, tom. i. p. 1. 


ACTION OF EXTERNAL BODIES IN SENSATION. 337 

others. By analogy Butler filled up the lacunae of reason, 
and Fontenelle profounded the order of other worlds. By a 
solitary pre-existent, physical cause, the Polarists explain all 
the phenomena, and all the.other causes of nature. Bacon 
sought to discover by observation; Aristotle, Locke, Condil¬ 
lac, from a single fact of the understanding, to infer all the 
other facts. Newton, whose great contemplations were 
always in contact with the unknowable, theorized by inter¬ 
rogation, and received the praise of modesty. 

Let us do homage to theory! In the firmament of the 
mind, it is the Aurora, which rides front in the car of victory 
—of conquering knowledge. From age to age it has pulled 
up the old stakes, set them out further, and widened the 
boundaries. Its encouraging voice is, come hither, the 
ground is yours. In a moment, it has dung myriads of 
minds into new foci of activity; and new arts, sciences, have 
been born in a day, and new happiness for the species. 

But has it done any thing here?—led us up on the ram¬ 
parts of ancient science, and said “look over beyond.” En¬ 
terprising as it is on the field of matter, when it approaches 
this mysterious labyrinth, which exists between our intelli¬ 
gence and external bodies, it is powerless. The great shadow 
of the first night remains immovable; we know not our 
world, are unknown to ourselves; and from our reason, can¬ 
not tell whence we are coming, whither tending, or what 
may be our proportions with the great whole. 

In the impossibility of knowing, there are some things, 
however, not absolutely beyond reasonable conjecture in 
respect to the action itself, which, when progressed, becomes 
sensations or perceptions. 

ARTICLE I. 

Manner in which the action is applied. 

i 

All living bodies are periodically withdrawn for a season 
from this changeless, exhaustless action of matter.—The 
cords, which bind them to the great material machine of 
the universe, are occasionally loosened; they sleep. The 


338 MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

points of the organism in immediate contact, on which this 
action plays—the senses—soon to be contemplated, with the 
other organs exhaust, deteriorate, wear out from their inter- 
course—they sleep continually—die. 

This law, which necessitates sleep temporary and final, 
demonstrates the infinite disproportion between the force of 
our intelligence, of the living, manifesting mechanism, and 
this force of matter. What is this force of matter ? Matter ! 
what is it?—was when man was not, or life or Eden—first 
effort of creation; primordial base of all sublunar life, and 
thought—great in the space it occupies, and in its motion— 
magnificent, and beautiful in its forms—unworn, undecayed 
—extreme in age, young—grand in its spectacle, pushing on 
in eternal, unchangeable energy and activity—glorious in 
its radiating light—omnipresent in its gravitating attraction 
—sprung at first from an eternally wise and creative spirit, 
spiritual in its origin—planted burning flowers in the up¬ 
lifted concave, the blue lawns of space, exhaling the aroma 
of light—worlds—lakes of snowy-flowing waters, cool grottos, 
shady walks?—resorts of the ancient-youthful Omnipotent? 

In the sense of our mind, though it causes our perceptions, 
makes us know, it cannot be intelligent. But the Being 
who made it, is pure intelligence. Why, then, should phi¬ 
losophers have thought, he would make matter, any thing, 
brute, discrepant to his own perfections ;—deprive them of 
the powder, ornament of consciousness, by which alone they 
could feel him? Is it because they have not considered 
that the functions of our senses, as of the balance, are only 
temporary affairs of our world and because we can com- 

* We do not know, that senses, a nervous tissue, are the only resources of 
consciousness, and but that all mute existences may profess a cryptopneu¬ 
matic nature, by which they concur in the action of the sovereign spirit. 
Beyond all earthly vision, Isaiah addresses such a nature or sense—“Sing, O 
heavens, and rejoice, O earth !” “ Clouds and darkness are round about 

Him”—“A fire goeth before Him”—“the earth saw and trembled”—are 
themes of the sacred lyre.—Trembled at the presence of Him, who “ made 
darkness his secret place ; his pavilion round about Him were dark waters, 
and thick clouds of the skies.” 

Our divines make these expressions prosopcepias, May they not be more ? 


ACTION OF EXTERNAL BODIES IN SENSATION. 339 

pare things alone with ourselves, and not with him? But 
to proceed. 

ARTICLE II. 

Living parts on which the action is exercised. 

All the vital structure is sequestered, withdrawn, from 
this action, except the senses, which are anatomically nothing 
compared to the organic whole. By this law of organization, 
nature has reduced the ground on which this vehement 
action plays to an extremely narrow compass. From this 
fact, as well as from the necessity of sleep, we may likewise 
conclude, that the force impressing sensation is greatly 
exalted in energy and intensity over the vital and mental 
forces. 

Nature, as I may say, seems to live in continual fear, and 
dread of this tyrannizing force. She manifests her solicitude 
not only by isolating all the organs except the senses, but 
also, by the rigid manner in which she enforces the laws of 
repose on all her living creatures. All vital and thinking 
energy exhausts quickly in this action. The soldier, after 
his long march, sleeps at the mouth of the enemies’ artillery 
amid the tumult of battle; the seaman on the mast-top tossed 
by the roaring tempests. The conqueror thinking in sight 
of glory sleeps; the poet, in the presence of eternal fame, and 
its loud trumpets. The butterfly sleeps in the aromatic cells 
of flowers; flowers sleep drinking meridian light; the goat 
tasting the hibiscus; the infant, in smiles drawing the milk 
from the snowy urns of its mother. 

Again—What is this great, incomprehensible power, 
activity of matter, of which all life is permitted to taste so 
sparingly? from which all creatures are so imperiously 
withdrawn in periodical slumber ? whose being is preserved 
for a limited duration only by tasting, and then reposing? 
and, from which they are only finally freed by death, and 
the decomposition of their organic elements ?—activity, with¬ 
out which, according to the great principle of Aristotle,* 


* Nihil intellectu, quin priiis fuerit in sensu. 


340 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


Bacon, Locke, Condillac, we could have never known our¬ 
selves or nature—which paints on our mind the shadowy 
image of God and the universe, the latter forming the back 
ground of the picture?—Matter! original, empire force of 
the world, turns in its motion the index on the great dial- 
plate of time, time the evanescent speck between two eterni¬ 
ties—washes forever infinite space with the sea of arrowy 
light it sheds—minister of the uncreated Spirit! brings from 
his fingers the sparks of fire, which light up in us the com¬ 
bustion of life, consciousness, sensation, and reflection ! 

We have just seen, the organs of sense are only directly 
impressed, and that the whole body, except the sensitive 
structure, is isolated from this action. The opinion was 
entertained both by the ancient and modern sages, that 
much of our ignorance, and slow progress of the sciences, 
is due to the limitedness of this contact, or to the fewness as 
to the imperfection of our senses. Every one knows that 
Voltaire made it the subject of his humor, the edge of which 
he intended for Fontenelle, the secretary of the French Aca¬ 
demy. 

Since each sense furnishes some new and distinct inform¬ 
ation of the phenomena of matter, it is inferable, that could 
our constitutions become more permeable to this action, or 
our senses with the power of the encephalon, be definitely 
augmented, our knowledge would expand in proportion. 
We then might profound the imponderable and other revo¬ 
lutionary attractions in bodies, solve those man }' 1 mysteries 
occurring in the experimental sciences, which, through pro¬ 
gressive ages, have remained forlorn hopes; distinguish be¬ 
tween minds playing in flesh and blood, and those free in 
spiritual organizations, and draw nigher in thought to the 
first Being. 

But it is probable, from the reflections on sleep above, 
could mortals attain to such enlargement, they could not 
sustain it. We have seen persons, who could scarcely live 
with the number of senses they had, for the tumults, tor¬ 
ments of excessive sensation. There can remain no doubt, 
but our forces are accurately weighed, and librate exactly 


ACTION OF EXTERNAL BODIES IN SENSATION. 


341 


against the great forces of the world. All the intelligence 
in the zoological scale is below ours. We may, therefore, 
infer, from the manner in which force is distributed through¬ 
out, and equipoises force in the system of nature, a greater 
degree of intelligence than in us is incompatible. 


ARTICLE III. 


Quality of the action. 




Is the property, by which matter discharges the functions 
of its own system, the same by which it impels the plastic 
nature to organization, and the mind to intellection? From 
the simplicity of nature’s manner of achievement, we may 
think it the same. But, the difficulty is not lessened, since 
we know not the proportions of these three elementary 
forces, whose displaying phenomena, I have said, is the 
sensible universe. We only know imperfectly the subordi¬ 
nation of their efforts—that neither that which lives, nor 
which thinks, can begin and continue its own action within 
itself, wffiile matter lives in the fulness of the movement it 
originates, and radiates the impulse, without which nor 
living nor intellectual existence were anything. 

Gall and Spurzheim affirmed with reason sufficient to 
make proselytes, that the brain is formed by the union of 
the nerves; other anatomists, that the nerves are derived 
from the brain. Some of the learned make the mental phe¬ 
nomena the mind itself; others regard these phenomena as 
the labors of the mind. The chemists look upon the acids 
as having an affinity for the alkalies; but it may be the 
alkalies which have the affinity for the acids. We know 
not, likewise, the proportions of the three fundamental forces 
—of things among themselves. How limited our absolute 

O O 

knowledge! In how much darkness is veiled this action we 


consider! 

May the movement, which stimulates to sensation be 
oscillatory? We know that all bodies are porous. Philo¬ 
sophers maintain the composing particles are enveloped in 
igneous atmospheres, or atmospheres of imponderable sub- 


342 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


stance; and, since Newton, opticians know the rays of light 
are repelled before they quite reach their surfaces. II the 
particles are enveloped in elastic, igniform vapor, which 
tills up all their interstices, making ail contact with one 
another impossible, we may suppose in their surfaces and 
volumes, they exist in continual oscillation. The repulsion 
of the incident rays before contact, favors the suspicion of 
such a formation and state. The manner, too, in which the 
extremities of the nervous organ terminate, the immediate 
recipients, is not. unfavorable to be affected by vibratory 
motion. The peripheric, subcutaneous nerves expand into 
papillary points; the optic into retinal; the acoustatory 
and olfactive nerves expand; and the arrangement of the 
apparatuses of the two latter, is to accumulate and econo¬ 
mize their respective stimuli, or vibrations of the atmo¬ 
sphere, and the atmosphere impregnated with corpuscles. 
We know likewise rougT bodies are more tactile than 

o 

smooth, and acute sounds more audible than dull. 

But if the sentient extremities are favorable to be impres¬ 
sed by such motion, the nervous fillets, which are to conduct 
the impression to the brain, are any other than vibrative. A 
circumstance Hippocrates could not have known in forming 
his views; and unappreciated by X)r. Hartley, in erecting 
his celebrated vibratuncular hypothesis. And too, if vibra¬ 
tions made on the senses be all they require to discharge 
their functions, the picture on the retina is an anomalous, 
unmeaning superfluity, which cannot be. 

Those savans, however, who see nothing but a primordial 
parent force, of which all visible existence is the mere deve¬ 
lopment of activity, find no difficulty in exploring this me¬ 
chanism. The imponderable agents form a part in the com¬ 
position of all bodies. They are the prolific causes of all 
mutations. The brain elaborates them from the alimentary 
matters ; the nerves form the media of all communication. 

These imponderable agents—or light, caloric, the galvanic, 
magnetic, electric fluids, are bipolar. The bipolarity of light 
is evinced by some of its rays oxydizing silver, others deoxy- 
dizing; that of caloric is less manifest but certain ; the double 


ACTION OF EXTERNAL BODIES IN SENSATION. 343 

mode of action of the other two is familiar. The tendency 
of all their movements is to contraction or expansion. 

When, therefore, an external body is placed in contact 
with one or more of the senses, these imponderables display 
their activity in their attractions or repulsions of the nervous 
organ, which are sensations, consciousness, volitions. Every 
display is accompanied by some change in the state or pro¬ 
portions of the elements of organic chemistry—the phlogistic, 
nonphlogistic combination or decomposition of oxygen, azote, 
hydrogen, and carbon. Every mental phenomenon is achiev¬ 
ed at the expense of some mutation in the substance of the 
living organs. 

And we must suppose, from the laws of physics, accord¬ 
ing to this system, that all material bodies undergoing the 
operation of our perception, must suffer change too in their 
molecular constitutions. For, if they discharge in us the 
imponderable matters which they contain, changing the 
order of vital combination, the brain secretes abundantly 
these same matters armed with the same bipolar, modifying 
attractions, with w 7 hich, in their turn, they must become sur¬ 
charged. The mental phenomena being due to these mat¬ 
ters secreted by the brain, as to those inherent in external 
bodies, and being simply the displays of their mutual attrac¬ 
tions in the nervous organ, these bodies during sensation 
must be liable to a change in the quantity or proportion of 
these matters, or to a loss of equilibrium ; and, consequently, 
to inevitable molecular alterations. 

According to this view, in place of the “ contraction of a 
muscular fibre,” had Darwin, immersed in the speculations 
of Brown, defined an idea an attraction, and identified the 
cause with the causes of all physical changes, he had now 
been the rival of Koenisberg and Schelling; and, with other 
noble worthies, stood on the cloud-capt summit of this tran¬ 
scendental philosophy. But we have no inclination to pur¬ 
sue farther, or profound this system, great in the names it 
can marshal. 

Forlorn! Philosophers will endure the agonies, torments 
of thinking for glory, as if the lone discovery of truth was 


344 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


not sufficient reward for their toils—truth, the true unity 
between man and his Divine Creator. 

What have we precised ? the contact of the objects of sen¬ 
sation, and the integrity of the nervous instrument. 


SECTION II. 

ACTION OF THE LIVING ORGANISM IN PERCEPTION, AND CAUSATION OF 

THE INTELLECTUAL PHENOMENA. 

In approaching this impugnable subject for discussion, 
we seem to be climbing over the ruins of ancient times. These 
are the works of many successors—engines of offence—bul¬ 
warks, science has reared up since remote antiquity to hold 
out the siege, and force the secret truth of nature;—mould¬ 
ering, broken—smoky images of thought; venerable, mag¬ 
nificent ; but among them no trophies. 

This action, according to M. Adelon, and majority of the 
physiologists, is triple.—1. The action of the sensitive organ, 
to which the sensation is referred;—2. Action of the inter¬ 
mediate nerve, which conducts the impression to the brain; 
3. The action of the brain itself, the last material condition, 
which constitutes the impression a perception. 

ARTICLE I. 

Sensitive organs or the senses , and their action. 

In the state, in which we appear designed to pass our 
days in nature, or in the healthy state, the senses proper 
furnish all the materials to the operative mind, which con¬ 
stitute its entire concern, or circumscribe its intercourse 
with the living body, and the external world. This state is 
the equilibrium of all the living with all the external, impel¬ 
ling forces—the calm between the organic and great mineral 
life of nature; the action all proportioned, regular. The 
great heart beats; the blood darts forward, all the atoms 
play in the living vortex, but the mind feels not “ the idle 
whirl.” Enthroned above this busy scene of pulsations, 
assimilations, secretions, exhalations, it sits undisturbed. In 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—INTERNAL SENSES. 345 

meditation free, it commands both the past and the future; 
wanders abroad; conscious glances at the Almighty; fashions 
the glittering rays of science; labors at the glittering woof 
of song; rejoices in its own strength and beauty. 

But when this equilibrium is lost, or in the diseased state, 
the senses proper no longer furnish alone the elaborating 
materials. Each fibre, each bone—every tissue—may be¬ 
come vocal, and the seat to which the perceiving mind 
refers the impression—a sense.* The impressions of the 
living parts not sensitive, thus becoming senses, go to the 
brain, rival, triumph there over those coming from the senses 
proper, and command almost exclusively the mind’s percep¬ 
tive efforts. 

These impressions appear to elevate the mind to the auto¬ 
cracy of the living body. In the eyes of some philosophers, 
they materialize its nature. Stahl seized upon them, and 
drew forth a victorious argument for the existence of his 
Anima. Their mechanism is most obscure. 

Upon the view just presented, the senses may be divided 
into three separate classes. 

1. Those, by whose action we know the organism in the 
healthy state. 

2. Those, by which we know it in the pathological state. 

3. Those, by which we become acquainted with the ex¬ 
ternal world. 

1. Internal Senses . 

The senses called internal, furnish the mind with the 
intelligence of what passes in the living economy ; or of the 

* How infinite are the modifications of pain; how infinitely can disease 
multiply these senses ! 

Every experienced practitioner has seen patients laboring under fibrous, 
serous, neurotic,—irritations, when most every part of the body had become 
the seat of a separate torment. How pitiful are such sufferings! Too 
powerful for all other impressions, they engross wholly the sufferer’s mind. 

Thus it would appear, nature by such means, cuts off all mental inter¬ 
course with the external world, that the soul may witness the hard blows 
which break down the shelter which covers it here ; and be apprised of the 
long and solitary voyage before it. 

29* 


S 



346 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


normal changes which happen there, as the external senses 
do those of the great outward world. But there is this very- 
great and remarkable difference between the two. From 
the impressions made on the external senses, we deduce all 
the properties, qualities, and phenomena of material bodies 
as existing beyond the impressions, separate, and distinct 
from them and ourselves; while, from the impressions of 
the internal senses, we deduce nothing beyond. In the one 
case, through the impressions we perceive the causes of 
them, or external objects; in the other, through the impres¬ 
sions, we perceive, infer no causes. In the operations of 
these senses the living body remains in darkness. We do 
not see the organs, whose wants, natural conditions, they 
report to the mind. We see nothing colored, tangible, cor¬ 
poreal, through the impressions they make. It is simply 
the states or modifications of the nutritive portion of the 
nervous organ which we feel in their operations. 

They differ likewise prodigiously in the spheres of their 
activities. The great external world circumscribes the 
action of the one; the domains of the living organs that of 
the other. 

The internal senses, mostly periodical in their exercise, 
operate through health and disease; from time to time give 
notice to our intelligence of the return of our natural wants, 
as meats, drinks, exercise, repose, defecation.—Though 
active both in health and disease, they only manifest the 
natural or healthy wants. Hence I have included them 
here under the healthy state of the organism. Great labor, 
rest, sickness, health, promptly modify their activity—as the 
want of acids, and insatiable thirst for cool drinks in trau¬ 
matic irritations, acute fevers; exaggeration, loss of appetite. 

Their end evidently is to stimulate to volitions; but their 
stimulations would be unavailing, without the use of the 
external senses to direct to the objects of gratification. The 
two sorts of sense combine in the general, conservative action 
of the economv. 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—PATHOLOGICAL SENSES. 347 


2. Pathological senses . 

These are developed by all inflammations, by all devia¬ 
tions from the healthy state. They manifest activity under 
no other conditions—are strictly pathological. They are 
flambeaux lit up on the pathway to the tomb, to light us to 
its dark chamber—thorns over which we step, to reach the 
rest of nature. 

These senses, operative only in disease, deserving this 
title, since the mind always refers the impression, except 
when the anatomical arrangement* of the nerves forbid, to 
the tissue or tissues affected, are not properly conservative. 
Or they do not furnish the mind with the idea of the proper 
curative remedy. It is true persons have dreamed of, most 
ardently desired, the very best therapeutic agent for their 
case. But practitioners know the sick most frequently 
think of, have an appetite for what would be injurious. 
These senses manifest to the mind simply the various modi¬ 
fications of pain, leaving it ignorant of the means of relief. 

These with the internal senses appear to be developed, or 
their activity is manifested, by a law, which connects the 
operations of organic chemistry with the perceiving mind. 
Otherwise, or without this subordinating law, we could not 
feel hunger, thirst, pain, only at periodical times, or in cer¬ 
tain states of the system. This union of the mind with the 
molecular action of the living body— base — main-spring —as 
I have said, of all its functions, really exists, and is most 
unprofoundable. These two sorts of sense again resemble 
in this—no external agents cause the perceptive impressions 
in them. The mind, in their excitements, simply feels the 
changes healthy or diseased of the organism; and to these 
changes, undoubtedly molecular , the impressions appear to 
be due. In this respect they differ precisely from the ex¬ 
ternal senses, which, for the mind’s perception, require an 

* Galen applauded himself, has been applauded, for curing a renal affec¬ 
tion by a blister low down on the back, which had resisted one on the 
shoulders, and all other treatment. He could not have known this arrange¬ 
ment, or the reason of the cure. 


348 MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

impression ab externo. But if they differ from the external 
senses, their nerves, immersed in the substance of the organs, 
differ not less, in having no peculiar manner of terminating 
their extremities. Though both are internal, they are dis¬ 
similar in the ends they subserve; the one presides over the 
empire of our disease, the other, of our wants. 

I have represented the pathological sense as being active, 
exciting the brain only in the seasons of disease. But if the 
observations of Georget, Lobstein, and others are to be trusted, 
in certain states—somnambulism, animal magnetism—this 
sense must be regarded as capable of imitating, in its action, 
the external senses—as in persons reading sealed letters hid 
under their clothes, seeing the condition of their own viscera, 
the countenance of the foetus in the matrix, &c. In all 
such cases it presents the causes of impression to the mind 
or real objects. May its anomalies one day throw new 
light on the philosophy of natural vision? To its irregular 
movements must be due, the existence of all real apparitions, 
spectral illusions, soon to follow in order. 

3. External senses. 

By the two sorts of sense just reviewed, we know the 
organism in the different states—our organic selves. By 
the external senses we know other existences. All the nerves 
of these senses, which transmit the elements of the mind's 
perceptions of external objects, arise with ganglionic swell¬ 
ings on their roots, terminate each in a manner peculiar to 
itself, and have complementary apparatuses ancillary in the 
execution of their functions. The form and constitution of 
these apparatuses and terminating nerves, are respectively 
accommodated to the immediate forms of matter, which are 
to make the impressions. And their properties, the union of 
the mechanical and vital, are, on the one side, precisely 
adapted to react on the form of matter offering the impres¬ 
sion, and on the other, as we may suppose, to receive, and 
transmit the impression offered. 

Thus, for example, in place of the retinal expansion, if 
the optic nerves terminated cylindrically after passing the 
cranial foramina, they would be adapted to the intercourse 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—EXTERNAL SENSES. 349 

or impression of a body solid like themselves, and not to a 
substance tenuous and diffused like light. The whole struc¬ 
ture of the eye, all its properties vital, mechanical, modify 
the course of light, and the manner in which it exists in 
nature. If its stimulating intensity and conditions were of 
themselves competent to its function; from the simplicity of 
nature, the optic nerves ought to terminate in the form they 
approach the eye. The retina and complicated structure, 
therefore, are necessitated to afford light, competency or effi¬ 
ciency in vision. 

And, since this substance radiates in straight lines from 
the solar centre, and the arc of a circle, which would unite 
any two rays, widens as the distance increases, so true is 
this, that the same eyes or eyes in the same creatures, to see 
in the different provinces of our system, would require con¬ 
tinual modifications to accommodate the growing tenuity 
from expansion of the rays, or density, from nearness to the 
sun. 

From the elastic structure of the external ear to the gela¬ 
tinous liquor, vibrcitile lymph of Cotunni, amid which floats 
the soft, pulpy, fibrillous expansion of the portio molis , the 
power of undulatory movement seems to have presided over 
the formation. The vital and general physical properties, 
the whole structure, apparatus concerned in achieving audi¬ 
tion, harmonize with the sonorous radiation of the air, or 
form of matter, which makes the specific impression. 

Not less than those of sight and hearing, are the organs of 
taste and smell, in form and make, accommodated to the 
sapid and odoriferous molecules of bodies, which specifically 
excite their functions. 

All the nerves of touch, the primordial or elementary 
sense in the opinion of philosophers, according to Cli. Bell, 
arise, with those of the other particular senses, from the 
brain and spinal marrow, as noticed, with ganglionic swell¬ 
ings on their roots.—“I have ascertained, and proved by 
experiment,” says he, “that all the nerves, without a single 
exception, which bestow sensibility from the top of the head 
to the toe, have ganglia on their roots; and those which 


350 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


have no o-anMia are not nerves of sensation.”*—The nerves 

O O 

of touch penetrate the chorion, and terminate in variform, 
pulpous expansions or innumerable papillae. By their union 
these papillae form the second coat or layer of the dermis; 
and become erectile on being excited. Over this coat is 
spread the mucous one of Malpighi, which the papillae per¬ 
forate, destined to sustain them in a moist and pliable state; 
and the meshy covering, formed by the sanguineous and 
lymphatic capillaries, which envelop the papillae, and have 
filamentous attachments with the epidermis. 

As regards, however, this minute and complicated form 
of the organ of touch, I may say, anatomists are not exactly 
agreed. M. Chaussier denies this superposition of layers, 
regards it rather as “ the fanciful conception of the mind, 
than the result of observation;” and sees in the dermis but 
one trame or body composed of dense, lamellar, decussating 
fibres, in which terminate in papillae the last extremities of 
the nerves, the exhalent and absorbent vessels. While in 
the mucous body alone of Malpighi, M. Gaultier could dis¬ 
tinguish four distinct lamellae; M. Dutrocliet three; but 
Bichat denied the existence of the pretended mucous, and 
formed this membrane of the extremities of the lymphatic 
and sanguiferous vessels. 

Debatable as may be the precise structure of this organ, 
the papilliform termination of the nerves—an amazingly 
delicate membrane, which envelops the papillae, as I may 
say, in an atmosphere of continual moisture—whatever con¬ 
cerns the essentialities—command universal consent. 

Speculations on the manner of their action , and of the 
action of external bodies , their stimulators. 

If, then, the retina be kept moist by a serous exhalation, 
and the wdiole organ, by the mucous and lachrymal secre¬ 
tions, the portio molis is immersed in the gelatinous liquor 
of Cotunni, the pituitary, and gustative membranes are mois¬ 
tened by their mucous and glandular effusions, and the 
papillae are kept soft by the rete of Malpighi or a membrane 
performing an analogous function. All the organic seats of 

* An Exposition of the Nat. Syst. of the Nerves, p. 160 . 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—EXTERNAL SENSES. 351 

the senses, therefore, by which we know an external world, 
are reduced to one condition—enveloped in a gaseous or 
liquid molecular form of the organic matter. Since the 
condition is one, is the manner in which all external bodies 
operate in producing sensations one and the same? 

The material forms which produce the various sensations, 
we know, are all different The eye is not affected, dogs not 
seethe odoriferous molecules, which cause the sensation of 
smell; nor is the olfactory sense affected by light. I have 
said, all the forms of matter stimulating to sensation, are spe¬ 
cific in relation to the senses they stimulate. We may, there¬ 
fore, conclude, the different sorts of sensation achieved by 
the several senses, depend both upon the varied forms of 
matter, and upon the different modifications of the nervous 
substance of the organs. The corporeal forms causing sen¬ 
sations are varied; and since light, odours, the cause of sound, 
immerse at the same time the whole of our bodies, and affect 
only the senses in relation to them, we must infer the pro¬ 
perties of the nervous matter are varied in the senses them¬ 
selves. But, since we see the external sensitive organs are 
all reduced to one condition, is, I repeat, the manner of the 
action of all corporeal forms one and identical ? 

In the actual state of knowledge, there is a strong inclina¬ 
tion, not to say solicitude, generally felt, to adopt the unity 
of the manner of this action. This may be attributed to the 
great developments recently made in electricity, galvanism, 
electro-magnetism, and, in every branch of natural science 
not at all or very little known to antiquity. The discovery 
of the laws of these substances, some of them now, is ra¬ 
pidly raising them among powers to the supremacy of the 
world. 

When experimental electricity, if I may digress a mo¬ 
ment, had only commenced, Newton already supposed the 
interplanetary spaces were filled with a subtle fluid, to 
which the celestial motions might be due. Hoffman made 
this fluid or sether, which he regarded as existing diffused 
in all bodies and space, the principle of life itself. De¬ 
rived from external space, it is, according to him, secreted 


352 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


by the nerves; and diffuses life through the whole system. 
The evolution of the entire organized body is due to the 
concourse of the particles of this fluid, each of which is 
“ conscious ” of the wants of the organic molecule, it holds 
in its vital embrace. This fabric rude and uncouth of the 
olden time, compares badly with the similar ones of our mo¬ 
dern, theoretical physiology, built up symmetrically of ma¬ 
terials polished, and more ample. 

To proceed.—All progressive investigation of these agents 
seems rather to confirm than conflict with the belief, that 
they are the causes or are concerned in all the movements of 
nature :—Or that 'polar motion is fundamental—the base of 
all others. 

Accordingly, it is not improbable, the movement in the 
various species of matter, I have mentioned, as light, odours, 
et cet., which stimulate the senses, or produce those changes 
which become perceptions, may be polar in the gaseous or 
liquid form. The reduction of all the external senses to one 
condition—a humid state—may accommodate this sort of 
movement, and make it still more probable. We know 
when the tongue is dry, the application of a sapid body ex¬ 
cites only the sense of touch, and not the specific sense of 
taste. The loss of proper humidity or too great dryness of 
the liquor of Cotunni and portio molis, and of the olfactory 
organ, impairs or destroys hearing and smell. And we may 
judge, the simple privation alone of the moisture of the pa¬ 
pillae and retina, would effectually subvert their functions. 
This humidity which envelops all the external, sentient 
extremities of the nerves, appears as essential as the struc¬ 
ture itself in achieving impressions, and a condition, on 
which rests all our knowledge of a material world. 

If we take the cutaneous papillae for the model, we may 
regard the expansions of the gustative, olfactory, and audi¬ 
tory nerves, and the retina, only as so many variform papil¬ 
lae; all answering, concurring in nature to the same end. All 
these papillae look directly to the vital economy. The various 
ancillary apparatuses with which they are armed, enjoy 
direct relations with the forms of matter, which immediately 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—EXTERNAL SENSES. 353 

excite the impressions; and form the union between the 
forces of these forms, and the special force of sensibility. 
And, for three of the senses, we see, that light, odours, vi¬ 
bratory atmosphere are three of them. 

Since light penetrates freely the hardest substances, as 
glass, diamonds, it must be of amazing tenuity. The odo¬ 
riferous molecules are too minute for all optic glasses. The 
body or base of the atmosphere is unknown; but many facts 
make it probable, it is a sphere of fire, whose raging dames 
are disarmed by being saturated with different substances 
of heterogeneous affinity. Like these three, are the other 
two forms which excite taste and touch really tenuous or 
subtile? 

All bodies are not sapid, and those which are, only become 
so by their molecules being dissolved or moistened by the 
secretions that cover the seat of taste. These attenuated 
molecules may be looked upon as the true stimulators of the 
sense. But all bodies of sufficient volume and density are 
alike under the empire of touch. Are then volume and den¬ 
sity real elements in the excitement of this sense; and does 
it differ in its conditions from all the rest? To the senses of 
sight, smell and hearing, the exciting matters come already 
attenuated—prepared to make the impressions, while the 
sense of taste, we see, attenuates the sapid bodies for its own 
excitement. But is the sense of touch anomalous? does 
matter, I repeat, in all its gross forms, without any elabora¬ 
tion, excite it? From analogy we should not think so. The 
epidermis covers, isolates the papillae; they are not contacta- 
ble; and we see no elaborating menstruum as in taste. What 
then immediately approaches the papillae, and stimulates in 
the exercise of this sense? We know all bodies are satu¬ 
rated or hold in equilibrium in their interstices matters the 
most subtile, penetrating. When beat or rubbed, some grow 
hot and ignite; others attract or repel one another; and the 
ratio of their adhesive attractions becomes altered. It is, 
therefore, the most probable, thesq tenuous matters penetrate 
the epidermis, and stimulate, as they exist in nature, imme¬ 
diately the sense of touch, as light does the sense of vision, 
30 


354 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


which may be only another form of these same matters. 
That it is not the surface, volume, density, or figure of 
bodies, which excites the sense of touch, but effluvia or sub¬ 
tile, photoid substances, which exist in all, and envelop their 
surfaces, will be rendered still more probable in a future 
chapter, where we are to discuss sensation. 

All the extremities of the nerves of the external senses, as 
we have seen, whether they terminate in retina?, papillae, or 
fibrillous expansions, are analogous, look to the same end, 
and are reduced to the same condition in the humidity which 
covers them. And we have noticed the high probability 
that all the forms of matter stimulating immediately to sen¬ 
sation exist also in the same state, or are reduced by the 
provisions of the living economy to the same, to excite the 
impressions —that of tenuity or subtile liquidity. Those of 
touch cannot actually be demonstrated so to excite, but from 
analogy, for the reasons given and many others, we may 
believe, their manner of activity does not differ from the 
others. Consequently, if not entirely certain, it is extremely 
probable, the action of all bodies producing sensation is the 
same,—that it is molecular, and takes place between the 
imponderable substances which penetrate these bodies, and 
a substance equally imponderable wdth which the sensitive 
organs are surcharged. 

We may regard, with physiologists generally, the brain 
and nerves, as constantly generating, by a chemico-vital 
movement, a peculiar gaseous substance, wdiich is rapidly 
expended in all the operations of the economy. This sub¬ 
stance radiates from the brain along the nerves, but is pre¬ 
vented from escaping, we venture to think, by the non-con¬ 
ducting properties of the liquid, which bathes or moistens 
their sentient extremities. That this liquid may prevent 
the escape of the brain’s radiating substance is proven from 
the fact, that it exists in constant accumulation about these 
extremities ready to be exploded in sensation. If it be not 
so, w 7 hy do all the senses quickly tire on intense exercise? 
The fingers passed rapidly over rough bodies, as coarse sand, 
soon lose all sensibility. And w^hy is this sensibility so 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—EXTERNAL SENSES. 355 

quickly recovered, or the radiant, cerebral substance, re-ac¬ 
cumulated ? 

If then the form of matter, which excites sensation for the 
whole material world, be gaseous, the organic form of matter 
the organism furnishes to receive the excitement, is also 
gaseous or subtile. And since, so far as investigation has 
gone, all the atoms of compound bodies are endowed with 
bipolarity,—probable parent force of all chemical affinities; 
—and the imponderable fluids, one of which, light, stimu¬ 
lates vision, are known to be bipolar, we may be pretty cer¬ 
tain, the movement all external bodies offer causing the 
mental phenomena, is of the same polar or polaroid character. 

But does the movement received by the senses and trans¬ 
mitted to the brain by the conducting nerves , continue polar 
ayid the same ? 

Anatomists have observed, the parts which a single nerve 
supplies, are in so great disproportion to the volume of the 
supplying nerve, that it is impossible it can be present in 
its substance by ramification or fibrillous expansion in all the 
parts; and yet the whole surface is as sensitive to puncture 
as if the nerve itself were touched. Holding the truth of 
the axiom,— corpora non agunt ubi non sunt ,—they have 
therefore felt themselves compelled to infer the existence of 
an organic, subtile substance, which surrounds the nerves, 
by which they can extend their action and influence beyond 
their presence, in imitation of the polar agents. 

The researches and active reason of Reil first forced this 
view upon him. Aldini, Humboldt, Rolando, Cuvier, are 
among its most illustrious advocates and interpreters. The 
experiments of Humboldt, the experiments of W. Philip, 
repeated and approved in France,* show most incontestably, 
that the nervous action, with a certain degree of intensity, 
can pass across the solution of continuity from one part of a 
divided nerve to the other. All the experiments and inves¬ 
tigations of the most enlightened men, seem to concur in 
establishing the existence of atmospheres in the organism of 
an amazingly mobile and penetrating substance, elaborated 

* Vid. Yavasseur—De 1’ Influence du Systeme Nerveux. 


356 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


by the brain, which can act at a distance on nerves and 
muscles in imitation of electro-magnetism. 

According to Beclard,* Lobstein,f this noble, hyper- 
organized substance is secreted by the nervous pulp from 
arterial blood during the chemico-vital process, passes along 
the interior of the nerves, flows over their outward surfaces, 
and beyond their extremities forming about them atmo¬ 
spheres, penetrates, impregnates the tissues, the blood and 
all the humors, and contains in it the sole active principle 
of all sensibility, vital motion, and unity of the living body. 

By the experiments of Ch. Bell the first, a strong title to 
glory, of Magendie, and Beclard, is established forever,— 
that the nervous fasciculi and spinal chord are compound 
organs;—that the filaments in the same nerve, whether 
they transmit impressions or movements, execute the same 
functions throughout their whole extent;—that all the spinal 
nerves arise with double roots, the posterior roots are armed 
with ganglions, and convey impressions or sensations, the 
anterior, motions;—that the posterior part of the spinal mar¬ 
row to which correspond the nerves with ganglionic roots, 
enjoys encephalic relations or transmits sensations, the ante¬ 
rior part serves for movements. 

This distinctness of organs in organs so pertinaciously 
preserved; this rigid individuality of structure and function; 
these separate conduits which lead to and from the great 
encephalic centre — city of thought; — highways lying 
through the organism, that wind but never intersect; all 
combine to give nature utterance, that she has a material, 
subtile agent, which traverses them only manifest by its 
effects; and, that this agent is armed with forces against 
itself, and cannot pass at the same time in opposite directions 
through the same channels. The character of these forces 
is most evidently polar, which, to the honor of our species, 
human ingenuity has reached, and partially unveiled through 
experimentation. 

What then shall we conclude?—one parent force reigns 

* Elements of General Anatomy, p. 480 . 
t Treatise on the Structure et cet. of the Symp. Nerve, p. 104 . 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—EXTERNAL SENSES. 357 

and occupies universal space; in its mighty sweep animates 
all the celestial orbs with motion; heaves out from them the 
fires of da}'; holds their poles in the steady balance; fastens, 
shadowy things, their orbits in adamant; kindles up the fire 
of lives by organization; pushes them furiously through 
endless generations, preserving their proper types; lays hold 
on the brain it has fashioned, and gives to thought and con¬ 
templation form and being? Alas! if the essence of our 
mind were but the special sequence of such a force, and by 
innate tendency would resorb into the eternal Sensorium of 
nature, how brightened would be the miserable fortunes of 
our miserable race !! 

But with all the simplicity we believe nature possesses, 
can we admit such a force? Can we attribute all the mul¬ 
tiform, physical phenomena, which impress our senses or 
we perceive, to a force like this, endowed confessedly with 
capabilities of operating only in two opposite directions? Is 
it warranted by the actual order of the world vocal in its own 
philosophy; and can we arrive safely at its conception? 

No doubt the polar form of motion, which may be the 
elementary form, holds under its domination most of the other 
forces, and reigns the most extensively in nature. But we 
can observe the manner of the great triple action of the 
world, and the particular, corresponding forces. The par¬ 
ticular forces of matter attract or repel as in the stellar 
motions; or they liberate and recombine the elements of 
bodies, as in the imponderable or chemical attractions. But 
after all the changes through which the latter conduct— 
after all their operations in the obliviation of cities, all the 
works of men, of the earth’s geological faces, these bodies 
remain in the same mineral state. We are reared up from 
the dust; our sickness, health, our breathings, pulsations, 
assimilations, absorptions, secretions, calorifications, groan- 
ings, dyings,—have no fac-similes in this minerality of 
matter. They are the special phenomena of the special 
force of life, as sensation, reflection, are of the special force 
of mind—forces which mark the triple action. 

If, then, this gaseous, imponderable substance attested by 

30 * 


358 MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

experiments the most wisely conducted,—secreted at the 
moment of assimilation by the nervous pulp,—principle of 
all sensibility, motion, and unity,—which, transmitted from 
the seats of its secretion, form atmospheres in the organs, 
through which the nerves, in imitation of the imponderable 
agents, can extend their action beyond their extremities and 
surfaces, as in the passage across a divided nerve, the as¬ 
similation of the alimentary matters to the tissues out of 
vessels, transmission from one muscle or organ to another; 
—if, I say, this subtile, imponderable substance be the vital 
agent itself, the res organisans or the vehicle set up in the 
original creation, secreted by the parents, transmitted to the 
germ by generation, the force, breath of the Omnipotent, 
which polarizes the dust of the earth, and its face is covered 
with men, brute animals and plants, he polar , as it really 
appears to be, it is not so in the sense of electricity, gal¬ 
vanism, magnetism.—And if Philip and other anatomical 
philosophers were enabled to keep up the functions of the 
stomach by substituting galvanism after all nervous com¬ 
munication had been cut off, and felt themselves warranted 
in proclaiming the identity of the galvanic and nervous 
fluids, the time must come when investigation, pushed for¬ 
ward, will sever this identity, and elevate this substance 
formed by the nervous organ to a distinct and more exalted 
rank. Accordingly, if the movement external bodies offer 
to the senses in their impressions be polar, as it most pro¬ 
bably, almost certainly, is, the reaction of the senses, which 
is transmitted to the brain for the mind’s perception, cannot 
be polar in the same manner—a conclusion fully warranted 
by the order of facts, and the direction in which they tend, 
presented in this investigation. 

ARTICLE II. 

Action of the intermediate nerves , which transmit the impres¬ 
sions to the brain. 

The nearer we approach the mind itself, the thicker 
become the shades through which we group. Its nature is 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—CONDUCTING NERVES. 359 

spiritual; is the nature of the Divinity, whose pavilion is 
dark waters and thick clouds. These shades, which torment, 
hide us from us, are then the order of the universe. We are 
more material than spiritual, and, in the impossibility of 
knowing, attempt to know. 

The impressions which the nerves transmit, are the re¬ 
actions of the senses on the acts of external bodies. These 
acts, as already, appear to be polar. The sequential acts of 
the senses purely vital or the impressions appear also to be 
polar, but of a more complicated, higher order of polarity. 

The knowledge of polar motion is only commencing. 
None can anticipate its future flight. We applaud ourselves 
for the great age, conquests, dominions of our science. The 
philosophers of a thousand years to come may look on its 
brightest, best parts, as the conceptions of childhood. They 
may profound the compages of forces and their order, or the 
universal dependence of all physical phenomena—may lift 
up out of darkness the inverted pyramid of nature’s pon¬ 
derous body—show T the simplicity of its first elements; that 
the phenomena we see are only their last results—unveil 
how forces generate forces, whose two extremities rest in the 
same fixed point, in Him who is in all, and all in Him. 

Such attainments would present human nature with new 
aspects in the universe, and make man an august being 
among other creatures. But as respects the mind, in our 
ignorance, we only know now, that the material action, the 
vital action of the senses, of the transmitting nerves, of the 
brain, are each separate elements in any perception of an 
external object. We know not their proportions; but may 
think each organ modifies, assimilates, the material act pass¬ 
ing to the mind. Besides the sequential operation of the 
mind, the perception itself is known to arise from the con¬ 
currence of these four sorts of acts This perception is a 
new phenomenon—has new properties, relations—belongs 
to a new order. The brain, which is only a part of these 
organs, cannot be the true idea-maker . For what is new, 
in good logic, we must infer an invisible cause or agent— 
the mind—as we infer the existence and presence of an 


360 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


extremely subtile, mobile fluid, by which the brain acts in 
the two opposite directions of sensation and volition. 

But what are impressions, which when progressed become 
perceptions? We already know,—1. That three of the im¬ 
pression-making forms of matter are liquid or gaseous; and, 
from analogy and facts, the exciting matters of the other two 
are the same.—2. That the nerves of the senses are all modi 
tied in their extremities, and moistened by a liquid.—3. That 
the experiments of Reil, Aldini, prove they are surcharged 
with a tenuous, incoercible substance, which exists within 
and about them; a doctrine which enjoys the concurrence of 
physiologists generally.—4. That the experiments of Bell, 
Beclard, have made entirely certain, the impressions are 
transmitted to the brain through the posterior part of the 
spinal column by the nervous fasciculi, w T hich arise from this 
part with ganglionic enlargements.—5. That the researches 
of Lobstein, Beclard, confirm, that this incoercible, polaroid 
substance, as I may say, elaborated by the nervous organ, is 
the sole active agent of all living unities, sympathies, syner¬ 
gies—movements.—6. And that finally, the arrangements 
for making the sensitive impressions, both on the part of the 
material world, and the vital economy, all indicate the mode 
of activity to be peculiarly polar. 

Upon these general and imperfect bases, accordingly, im¬ 
pressions may be defined— movements offered to the senses 
by contact or intervention of bodies, producing a loss of 
equilibrium or changes in the condition of the peculiar, mobile 
substance furnished by the brain and nerves, with which they 
are surcharged. 

Whatever these changes maybe, however, which have for 
their condition the simple contact of bodies, experiments 
numerous as invincible show, it is the function of special 
nerves to transmit them to the brain, wdiere they become the 
conditions of other phenomena—perceptions. 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—THE BRAIN. 


361 


ARTICLE III. 

Action of the brain , which , in common language , constitutes 

impressions , perceptions. 

The action of this central, moral organ, is the last thing 
material about thought. It takes place by an irreducible 
law of our being, attested to us by observation, disease, acci¬ 
dents, by infallibility of experiments. Its simple truth no 
philosophy, no age has improved or diminished; it stands 
alone immovable where time first found it. 

The slightest inspection of the encephalon, and its com¬ 
plementary organs, the nerves, evinces it is built upon a 
vast, a grand model. Every thing about it wears an impe¬ 
rial aspect, shows the diadem of royalty. It looks the seat 
of empire; the throne of power. The numerous ways that 
lead from it, that go to it from without, manifest the prodi¬ 
gious intercourse, concern, it carries on with the external 
universe, and its own economy. In the papillary tissue, 
filmy mesh-work spread out on the whole periphery of the 
body, its substance presents one continuous, sensitive surface, 
to catch every aspen breath, every breeze, motion, impulse 
that stir in nature. It aliments upon her whole forces; and 
has a double motion, eccentric and concentric. Its compli¬ 
catedness; the multiplicity of its design; the sweep of its 
motion, stand out in striking contrast with the simplicity of 
all nature’s other sublunar labors. Its superb arrangements 
—magnificence—lofty dome—befit the grandeur, immor¬ 
tality of the tenant which occupies it. 

The extreme complication of this entire organ;—the varied 
abundance, peculiarity of tissues which compose it, wrought 
into strange and mysterious devices—wonderful compages ! 
—winding canals, polished chambers with arched roofs, pas¬ 
sages leading to them ;—the distinct parts of the whole 
separated, united—tubercular irregularity of its exterior 
figure;—many-lobed form, narrowing, expanding, terminat¬ 
ing in the long spinal extremity;—contained in a strong, 
bony involucrum, sacred depository;—peculiarity of its 


i 


362 


MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 


nutritive apparatus;—the faces of its distinct organs look¬ 
ing in so many directions;—the number, eccentric direction 
of its nerves to the whole living periphery—all show it 
forms the busy, active scene of many different labors, and 
stands solitary, alone in the world, without its like or parallel, 
the work-shop of thought. 

Here, I may say, in this house of our immateriality, rise 
the white columns of stalactite; yonder extend the floors 
of polished ivory covered w T ith carpets of snow; above glit¬ 
ters the shining roof of ample halls. Here rises the tree of 
life. It lifts up, expands its fair foliage, and ripens the golden 
fruit,—thought’s first, infant form ! Yonder, in closed chan¬ 
nels, wind rivers of living water to irrigate its roots. 

What are these ? the lofty dwellings of nature’s high priest, 
whose arrangements show there are concern, communication 

O 7 

of the universe. What beside? columns, grottoes, mausolea, 
monuments, sepulchres, where rest Sylvius, Yarolus, Hiero- 
philus, and other great men in immortality, who have, or 
soon will have, no other existence beside in living records. 
What else ? Anatomists only show us the place each occu¬ 
pies; and point out the sacred spot;—“ this is the aqueduct 
of Sylvius,” “ that, the press of Hieropliilus.” This idle 
exhibition is not anatomy.* Their fruitless labor has not 

* In anatomy human, comparative, philosophical, pathological, in our day, 
new routes to truth have been discovered, new channels of scientific industry 
opened, and the old science torn down, and remodeled upon infinitely broader 
and better foundations. It now contains the most various labors, the richest, 
most precious treasures of human genius. Its great radius sweeps across 
the empire of most all the other sciences. A most excellent form, still to 
be finished, a solid, enduring interest have been imparted to it by the labors 
of Geoffroy-Saint-Hiliare, who proclaimed, the first, “ the unity of organic 
composition of Cuvier, who profounded the problem of organic animality ; 
of Dumeril, Gall, Haller, Hunter, Wrisberg, Soemmering, Blumenbach, Reil, 
Humboldt, Vicq. D’ Azyr, Chaussier, Bordeu, Bichat, Tiedemann, Bell, 
Meckel, Desmoulins, Serres, Magendie, Blainville, Flourens, Laurencet, and 
a numerous host, marching with the flambeau burning bright in their hands. 
What glittering ranks on their way to posterity ! What names will be 
more dear to them, or remembered with more profit? How fresh and daz¬ 
zling will they appear ! 

The pyramid of glory Newton raised, has been carried up higher, and his 


i 


ACTION OF THE ORGANISM-THE BRAIN. 363 

penetrated the interior. These holy utensils and high aim 
of nature, are sequestered from the approach of their rude, 
unhallowed science; and the wars they wage sufficiently 
show the limit of research. 

If then we know not mind in its essence, the peculiar forms, 
configurations of the piece, which finish the top of the ma¬ 
terial, mind-bearing column, are equally mysterious, and un¬ 
known in their uses. 

Nature has fashioned this organ of our intelligence in. 
solitude, in the absence of our senses and reason. Man re¬ 
turns upon her to examine her labors. He finds great diffi¬ 
culty in distinguishing even the separate parts; and greater 
still, in detecting the manner in which they are put together. 
Their distinct devices, the special, the general ends to which 
they look, utterly confound him. They fall a prey to his 
fancy, and become its playthings—horns of beasts, bed¬ 
chambers, the arch, tent; the bridge, reap-hook,—become 
their types. More than twenty centuries of diligent re¬ 
search have passed to little profit; and, in the actual epoch, 
touching the proper division, construction of the entire or¬ 
gan ; the primitive and derivative parts, functions of each, 
much as has been accomplished, doubt and difficulty still 
reign; so that by his genius alone, M. Gall could totter the 
faith of the anatomical world. This investigating man pre¬ 
sented the brain as a bag or sack folded in itself, which he 
pretended to reduce to its first and proper shape. If there 
be Angels—those above us—who do know, they must laugh. 

Truth has commenced at the outside. The compound na¬ 
ture of the nerves and spinal marrow—the distinct uses of 
their separate filaments and parts—the precise conditions ne¬ 
cessary to the displays of their activity—that they alone are 
the sole agents of all sensations and movements, primary ele¬ 
ments of all animation—the various manner of their stimu¬ 
lations for each class of organs—the manner of the conju- 

yreat name is sinking in the shadow. The pile they have reared must still 
reach a greater elevation; and they too must sink in its lengthening shade. 
But, like Newton’s, it will worry the throat of time to drink up all the rays 
which cover them. 


364 MECHANISM OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 

gation of the organs they supply—the mutations of these 
organs through different types to final and perfect develop¬ 
ment—all due to zootomy, comparative and philosophical 
anatomy, have been reduced to demonstrative certainty. 
Besides the correction of errors, the rectification of the old, 
and the discovery of new truth; by the same means, much 
other truth and reason has been encompassed closely about, 
and much other still, on the approach, crowds the mental 
horizon of the investigator. 

But the commissures, the septa, falces, hemispherical, 
lobular, columnar, pyramidal, turbercular forms; the wind¬ 
ing canals, chambers, et cet. of the brain itself, and their 
uses, remain still in the first darkness. The encephalon 
being the immediate condition of respiratory life, they can¬ 
not be experimented upon to the same extent as other parts. 
And the experiments made inevitably by disease—ramoles- 
cence, indurescence, disorganizing phlogosis—have thrown 
much confusion as well as much light upon them. 

But the bare inspection of the brain in man—its great 
proportional volume—obvious number and diversity of its 
parts—their double or symmetrical arrangement—their gross¬ 
ness, extreme minuteness, uniqueness of the whole—their 
unity—the nerves diverging in every direction, dividing, 
decussating as they go to embrace the whole organism and 
subject it to their centre—would induce us a priori to con¬ 
clude upon the high and ruling character of its function. 

Impressions developed by the senses are transmitted by 
the nerves to it, and through the concurrence of its action, 
are said to become perceptions. The course of our discussion 
has repeatedly made manifest, this action is not the percep¬ 
tion itself, but only the simple antecedence. The concur¬ 
rence of the mind constitutes the impression modified by the 
brain, a perception. 

Prof. Broussais* has argued this point with his fierce logic. 
He condemns the spiritualists for introducing more causes 
than will account for the phenomena in question; considers 


* Physiology. 

•/ O J 



ACTION OF THE ORGANISM—THE BRAIN. 365 

the admission of such, an agent unnecessary for scientific 
research, and the agent itself, an ontologism. 

With this difficulty between the materialists and spirit¬ 
ualists, no interference can he made with profit. Objects 
that lie on the border of light, which surrounds us, will ap¬ 
pear with more varied and opposite faces than those nearer 
us. The reasons I offered above for the existence of an 
organizing nature carried out, will demand equally a per¬ 
ceiving agent within us. 

The senses, the conducting nerves, the brain, may all 
modify the material acts, which are perceived. The rapidity, 
instantaneousness of the intellectual phenomena, indicate to 
M. Berard* the presence of the mind in every part of the 
body. Yet however instantaneous, it must be conceded, this 
series or succession of living acts precedes every perception. 

Such fierce motion confounds our reason. But if w T e 
admit what must be certain, the immediate agent of this 
movement is a locomotive product of the nervous substance, 
it cannot, from the number of sensations possible in a second, 
excel, in its greatest velocity, that of Mercury in his orbit; 
or of electricity, which, from experiment, Franklin concluded, 
could it be conducted, would make the circuit of the earth 
in imperceptible time. It yields to the velocity, with which 
gravitation emanates from the heavenly bodies, as calculated 
by La Place, noticed in this work. 

The impulses of external bodies are transmitted to the 
central organ with tremendous velocity. We see no con¬ 
nection between the reactions of this organ upon these im¬ 
pulses, and the new order of phenomena the mind sequences 
from them. “The undevout philosopher is mad”—will 
stop short, not let go materiality, because his senses are 
mocked, and he cannot behold events in natu —behold the 
intermediate shape of thought. But he should remember, 
that perfect vision, the reins of all truth, are in the Divinity, 
the world’s fundamental idea; and that they are dispensed 
to him, to us, by the eternal reason, of which our intelligence 

* Diet. des. Scien. Med., tom. xvi. p. 438. 

31 


366 


RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 


—the whole frame of things—is hut the simple, unvarying 
order. 


CHAPTER XI. 

RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

The manner in which nature brings forth the mind, and 
unfolds its action is one thing; the opinions men have formed 
of its constitution and powers are another. Its history is both 
natural and civil. 

Its natural history modifies by age, sex, the industrious 
occupations, institutions, letters, sciences; by locality, cli¬ 
mate, all the varied faces of the world; and by all the vary¬ 
ing conditions, states of society, amid which it develops. 
The mind does not wear the same forces, manifest precisely 
the same phenomena in any two localities or conditions; 
but varies from the savage state, through all the gradations, 
to the top of European civilization. The varying quantity 
education gives, is more or less accidental. Its civil history 
regards it a fixed, immutable quantitv, and does not so mo¬ 
dify. 

» . 

SECTION I. 

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 

The mind or soul appears to be transmitted with life by 
the generating act. It augments in energy; remains sta¬ 
tionary in perfection for a time; then weakens till death. It 
passes through the different phases of existence here in imi¬ 
tation of the animated body, whose forms, forces are never 
the same given quantity. This body, projected through the 
space of time, which intercepts the cradle and the tomb, 
passes through a constantly varying series of changes. As 
its tissues successively unfold, its reacting forces augment 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 


367 


on what surrounds; and the encephalon ripens. As it gains 
dominions in nature, the soul, like it nothing at first, gathers 
up, arms its strength against the universe, and drinks broader, 
deeper, more varied thought from the increasing, widening 
torrent of sensation. 

During the first age, the internal senses are mostly active. 
Our wants return in rapid succession. Dentition, the" mala¬ 
dies peculiar to childhood, actuate frequently the pathologi¬ 
cal senses. We know our wants first, and the pain of dis¬ 
ease, which ultimately is to carry us hence. Our doom is 
written over the threshold, through which we enter into life. 

Soon time marks a difference in the minds of the two 
sexes. The little boy is bold, audacious, indomitable; loves 
to destroy life; is delighted with the chase, early, long the 
only occupations of men. The little girl is less fierce and 
more docible. Her sweetest pleasure is the cares she lav¬ 
ishes upon her alabasters. Thus nature entrusts to woman, 
in her earliest days, the secret of her destiny. She mani¬ 
fests her love of life, of which she is the depository, hope of 
our species, by fostering it in inanimate objects. 

The epoch of puberty comes with many changes. The 
nutritive forces hitherto wholly employed in unfolding, ma¬ 
turing the organic tissues indispensable to her own life, now 
concentrate on the matrix and complementary organs for 
their evolution—for the life, of which she has the innate 
love, and the foretaste. The menses rupture; two forms of 
snow rise from her bosom. The matrix irritates the brain; 
she has a new moral and physical existence.—Her soul 
wears a new complexion; the Graces fashion, and give ex¬ 
pression to her forms. The irritation of this organ shows 
itself the creating power of woman. Its work done, her 
destiny is revealed to the eyes of others. She is ready to 
enter on the sacred ministry of nature. The most active 
sensibility overwhelms her soul. She is conscious of the 
high sexual prerogatives intrusted to her guardian care. 
Their violation blots her being. She trembles at every leaf 
that stirs; every passing breeze; and blushes at each word 
spoken to her. 


368 RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

Soft illusions steal upon her; sighs struggle in her bosom 
—love’s unformed elements. She weeps; takes pleasure in 
solitude, that she may live on a single idea* and her tears 
not betray her. But if she is feeble and timid, full of soft 
compassions, nature has armed her in compensation with 
an energetic, heavenly power, which gives her dominions, 
homage; and conducts to her destiny—the power of beauty, 
represented in poetical antiquity by Eros playing with the 
thunderbolts of Jupiter. 

Decisive changes likewise mark the epoch of maturescent 
man. He, too, feels these soft and tender illusions; he 
plunges the whirlpool of love. His thoughts now fashioned 
to a sphere of fire, will not articulate in freezing prose. He 
expresses them in words of harmonious syllables measured 
in accord with the strains of music. Not like her he loves, 
he makes his love known. The solitudes he frequents echo 
with its touching, subduing melody. Like the passion it 
represents, it imparts life and energy where it undulates. 
The headlong waves stay their motion to listen; lions, 
tigers, wild beasts leave their hiding places, trees descend 
from the mountain top, to follow after. It forced the only 
smile that ever sat on the grim visage of the dread monarch 
of the Shades. Things live to which life is refused. It re¬ 
vives the shadowy forms of the dead; 

—Alta ostia Ditis, 

Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum 
Ingressus, Manesque adiit, regemque tremendum, 

Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda. 

At cantu commotae Erebi de sedibus imis 
Umbrae ibant tenues, simulacraq, luce carentum ;t 

—strains of the Saturnian land, which still live. The har¬ 
mony, with which love fills his soul combined with flowing 
numbers, passes over seas to fill the world; over the sepul¬ 
chre, to fill time. Posterity after posterity catch the sound; 
and she whom he loves, becomes immortal in the song of 
her beauty—eternal, heavenly power ! 

But besides love, whose end is the perpetuation of men, 
the burning, alluring fires of glory and ambition torment his 

* Polygamy is unnatural. f Georgica, lib. iv, 466. 


NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 


369 


heart. He is bom with the innate love of power. War 
gratifies ambition,—is the means of glory, remembrance. 
The Mavortian field becomes covered with flowers, which 
charm him; he plunges through the blood of his species to 
possess them. This field too looks elevated in woman’s eye, 
and enables him to compete more successfully on the. arena 
of her love; since she delights to contemplate in him the 
plenary power of protection. Thus she who gives life de¬ 
stroys it.* 

Other ambitions, pleasures, agitate him. Though doomed 
to death, he revolts at oblivion. He lifts up another sign of 
himself at which the coming ages will look; and he is not 
disappointed. In these ages the limits of his organic exist¬ 
ence appear an invisible point. In the gloom of futurity he 
will come forth; in the joy and beauty of his thought, he 
will live. 

From all the amplitude of space, sensations pour in upon 
his mind. It wades in a sea of contemplationfeels strong 
emotions, which it reflects beyond itself. From the cloud¬ 
less top of mountains reflecting the dark blue light above; 
or valleys darkened with trees, and overspead with flowers 
-^gloomy, delicious haunts—it hears voices calling it; it is 
the voices of these strong emotions it has felt; the voices of 
the first philosophy ox of the Muses, whose beautiful mother, 
according to the Greeks, was Memory. 

These voices announce the birth of Fancy, which comes 
forth in the burning, many-colored garments of Iris—eldest, 
fairest born. To aliment these emotions calling to it which 
now have an external existence and a name, it tastes the 
fabled waters of the Castalian font. It undoes all the corn- 
pages, the mighty form of things; reveals to nature new 
models of her own works; rebuilds them anew ; and throws 
over her noble form the glittering vesture of poetry. This 

* It was the white-bosomed maid of Fingal’s land, who was the shining 
ed<re of Oscar’s sword. It was the buckler of iEneas, the gifts of Mars, 

to _ 

which distracted the tender-hearted Eliza, queen of Carthage; and the Roman 
eagles with their gory talons, which the beautiful but worthless Cleopatra 
admired in her shameful amours. 


31* 


370 RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

vesture pleases it, which comely, it desires she should wear. 
Ages on ages look on it, and feel but joy. The texture, the 
threads w r hich compose it, time cannot break, or diminish 
the radiant beauty. Who does not blot, but adds a new 
coloring, or weaves a single thread, is immortal. 

Or, from all the remoteness, the secret depths of things, 
impressions come to it. These impressions arise from its 
reflection upon its first or simple sensations. These impres¬ 
sions are the elements of the second philosophy, wdiich 
reaches the discovery of the ancient, unknown Being. It 
faintly perceives their order ; it is the order of this original, 
Unknown, which, from the manner things begin, it calls 
nature.* A new, ineffable pleasure transports it. It has a 
model or pattern before it. In this model it beholds beauty, 
excellence, perfection. It is the first, the ancient model of 
things, existent before its own career began. It evinces to 
have been framed in the remotest antiquity, by a most per¬ 
fect and noble artist. This model, pattern, is a hallowed 
thing. Admiration, joy, veneration fill the laboring mind. 
In every thing it searches but for this model, order or the 
traces of it, and combines sacredly its sensations, the separate 
elements of its conceptions, reasonings, according to it. 

Every thing presented from without comes individual, 
distinct. It invents powers, properties, forces—many things 
of different names—giving form and being to language; and 
shapes its sensations according to the inspirations, teachings 
of this ancient order. By these properties, forces, which it 
has invented, it combines together into groups the elements 
of its separate sensations or its distinct perceptions. These 
sensations are the representations of the phenomena of nature 
in the mind, or what it feels in all external objects. It fur- 

* Females obviously produce. In all ancient, civilized languages we find 
females divine productive causes. Freya gives life; Ops, the Rhea of the 
Greeks, is the Magna Mater, who originates, nourishes. Dens, anciently Dius, 
to which is connected Dies day, is masculine, but Deltas, the godhead, mis¬ 
tress of creative power or of all the sun’s rays, is feminine. These two last 
evidently came into Italy from the East.—Vid. Hobbs on Heresies—Opera. 


natural history op the mind. 


371 


ther combines these groups into one great complete whole, 
and connects them with the first property, force—or nature.* - 

Through these properties, forces, with which it has clothed 
all beings, it can trace the order of their phenomena, their 
reciprocal actions, influences, changes—their history. These 
properties, forces constitute the manner in which the mind 
sees the universe. The epoch of their discovery is the natal 
epoch of science, or the second philosophy—the creature 
of much labor, in which it venerates this ancient order, 
achieving instrument of its strength and glory. 

Animated with the increase of power and dominion, it 
desires to sink deeper into the universe, and widen the limits 
it occupies. To extend the sphere of its impressions on 
the senses,—Eden-ruined creature!—it fashions glass, appa¬ 
ratus ; returns to reinvestigate; correct its first errors, esta¬ 
blish this order, and perfect its homage. 

Still, desires more voluminous, anxieties ever increasing, 
agitate, torment the mind. Where is the First, the ancient 
Being, who originated this order and fixed it forever—the 
first Nature to which the study of the second has conducted 
me—the eternal, unquenchable fire, of which all truth is but 
the kindled flame; of which a single ray moulded me in the 
image—the everlasting, immovable basis of beings, things? 
Fountain of incomprehensible radiance, from which spring 
all science, poetry, life, in which the stars dip their disks, 
and are covered with rays forever; of which, if man get but 
a glimpse, the flower of his civilization springs forth; his 
joy springs up in the earth with the melody of his lyre? O! 
depth of beauty, love, pleasure, good! I have seen what bears 
my own image. But where is my first Kin? the elder light, 
of which all visible lights are but the reflected shadow? 
Where are the resorts of the Great Invisible? Amid what 

* Thus all the siderial motions group into one property—gravity ; the 
chemical motions, into the molecular or imponderable affinities. All the 
phenomena of life form one or two great ideas, excitability , or sensibility and 
contractility , properties:—all the phenomena of the mind group into per¬ 
ception , memory , &c. All these separate groups combine again in one 
productive property — nature; beyond which they are nothing. These 
properties, forces et cet., form the skeletons of all the sciences. 


372 RAPID HISTORY OF THE'UNDERSTANDING. 

gleaming lightnings, loud thunders, lonely, sequestered 
solitudes—amid what dimensions, what infinities, heights, 
depths, do the turrets blaze, which point the spot? I have 
hurried through the great body of the world, mounted along 
its lofty top. Everywhere, amid the gloom, I behold the 
signs but see not, only feel Him I seek. Inspiration com¬ 
passionate comes; discovers what it desires to know. It now 
worships the first Nature, God, with knowledge, to which 
the order of the second could not conduct it, or make known. 

We cannot stop here to notice the modifiable mind or its 
various accidental quantities—a prodigious topic, broke by 
piecemeals in numerous works. Its modifications, how¬ 
ever, by governments, occupations, climates, localities, by 
education, are rigidly limited in its original constitution or 
capacity, which obviously differs greatly.in persons born and 
brought up under all the same circumstances. 

Its distribution. 

The radical principle of intelligence constitutes an origi¬ 
nal part in the design of all animation. Plants must distin¬ 
guish their proper aliments, and feel the stimuli, which 
impel to their vegetations—phenomena of their lives. Its 
manifestations in them are obscure in the extreme. They 
only have excitability—some of the first, most simple organic 
conditions for its elaboration. It is, rather, only some of 
the simple preparations for it, which they enjoy—the early 
dawn in gs. 

Alimentation being the mode of all lives, and all the ani¬ 
mal being momentarily destructible, they must distinguish, 
appreciate their food and danger; move their parts to absorb 
what nourishes, to avoid what injures; approach, appropriate 
food by volition, by volition fly from danger. Mind, there¬ 
fore, being a fundamental, living function, is inseparable from 
the idea of all vitality. It is apportioned to each animated 
being, according to the figure it is to make in nature.—Or it 
is distributed throughout the great, living scale in proportion 
to the general perfection of the organic structure, and of the 
nervous system especially. 

In the portion of this scale comprehended under the hu- 


CIVIL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 


373 


man species, in quantity and intensity, mind varies as much, 
perhaps more, than in any other part of the descending series ; 
so that the natural history we here epitomize, applies only 
to the highest or Caucasian variety. The mind, which 
unites the lowest of the animals with the highest of the 
vegetables, may be found to be more assimilated than that, 
which unites into one whole the sable savages of Cape of 
Good Hope and the polished people of Europe and America. 
Hermes from Heaven with letters, I may say, has appeared 
to the ancestors of the people of these countries; but the 
Hermes of the Bos-jessmen has not yet descended. 

Philosophers delight to trace a regular gradation of organi¬ 
zation and intelligence, from the bottom to the top of the in¬ 
verted pyramid of life. A gradation difficult to be precised 
in all, no doubt exists, but we may think, with some devia¬ 
tions. The greatest deviation, as respects the mind, appears 
to exist between the highest and lowest of man, which can 
be but very partially attributed to climate, locality, education 
—accidental causes. 

To illustrate the manner in which mind, original force of 
creation, is distributed through the great groups of the ani¬ 
mal scale, I will translate a table of Lamark’s, contained 
in his Treatise on the Nonvertebrated Races. 

1. Animals simply sensitive and irritable—the Zoophytes 
and Radiaria. 

2. Animals sensitive, irritable, manifesting instinct— Ce¬ 
phalic, Acephalic Molusca ; the Articulata — Chyrapodes, 
Crustacea, Arachnides, Insectce. 

3. Animals sensitive, irritable, possessed in different de¬ 
grees of instinct and intelligence—the Vertehrata — Ophi- 
dia, Fish, Birds, Mammifers. 


SECTION II. 

CIVIL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 

The mind, of which we have just noticed some of the 
phenomena and history, in several councils, Lateran 1. under 
Innocent III.; Vienne in Gaul under Clement V.; Lateran 


374 RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

3. under Leo X.; and others, was decided by the Catholic 
philosophers, bishops, to be immaterial, immortal; no part of 
the divine substance, nor of the celestial domicil; but is 
created out of nothing, and supplied according to the num¬ 
ber of bodies. The Fathers of the church in council decided 
farther, that there is but one soul in each body; and, by 
enacting laws for the country’s faith, put down the opinion 
of two souls as entertained by the Platonists, Averrhoists, 
and Manichseans. But, remarks Gassendi, “ while they re¬ 
jected, in the 8th article of the general synod, the opinion 
of many souls in man, they condemned only the dual num¬ 
ber.” In their view, they adopted the fundamental princi¬ 
ple of Aristotle, that the soul fashions and evolves the body, 
which, we know, Stahl made the base of his system. 
Against this opinion Leibnitz wielded the powerful logic of 
his mind in discussion, and had Plato for authority. 

In opposition to the authoritative decision of these Coun¬ 
cils, it has been thought by good philosophers, there is a 
passage in the 104th* * * § psalm, which favors, if it does not esta¬ 
blish, the opinion of Plato and other ancient sects; that there 
is in man a particle of the divine substance—something di¬ 
vine. According to Plutarch,f St. Jerome, J Ireneus,§> The- 
odoret,|| St. Augustin, Athanasius, and other Fathers, this 
belief was very widely diffused, and generally entertained. 
St. Augustin exerted all the force of his eloquence to put 
down this error; and we have seen, it was condemned by 
different synods. This beautiful and sublime passage can 
only mean, that God controls all power; in him with all 
other existences, we live, move, and enjoy our being. 

Respecting the nature of the soul existing in other crea¬ 
tures than man, much difference of opinion also exists. All 
nutrition—vital chemifaction—as all mental phenomena, 
imply sensibility as the first condition. All organized beings 
are nourished ; they are, therefore, sensitive; and sensitive, 

* “ Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled ; thou takestaway their breath, 

they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are 
created ; and thou renevvest the face of the earth.” 

t Questiones Platonicae. J Episto. ad Marcellinum. 

§ Against Heresies. Jj Divine Decrees. 


CIVIL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 


375 


they have thought or its shape. Gomez Pereira and Des¬ 
cartes strangely refused minds to brutes. L. Yives accorded 
to them a peculiar soul. T. Willis regarded it in them as 
a subtile, explosive fire filling their nerves. Condillac* sees 
no difference between the souls of brutes and men only in 
the relations of more and less. Pherecydes and Pythagoras 
his pupil taught, the first, that all the acts of animals are 
due to the ingenious, mechanic art of nature, and are purely 
automatic or mechanical. Buffon, possessing the pride of 
originality, pushed more than twenty centuries up higher in 
the inverted pyramid of human wisdom, which all ages are 
engaged in building or demolishing, adopted this Pythago¬ 
rean idea of the mechanical nature of brute minds, but with 
some improvement. He allowed them sensibility enough to 
feel pain and pleasure to direct them on the course of life. 

According to Galen, Hippocrates admitted an intelligent, 
governing principle both in man and animals. Aristotle 
discovered in the latter some traces of human reason and 
foreknowledge. Galen beheld in them tvbiaOETfov "Koyov ? Or ail 
internal reasoning faculty. We have the declaration of 
Stobeus, that Democritus and Parmenides accorded to ani¬ 
mals the power of discovering future events, and other in¬ 
tellectual faculties in a very high degree. Upon the autho¬ 
rity of Sextus Empiricus, Empedocles discovered some 
traces of sao-acitv and knowledge even in the movements of 
plants. 

The dogma, opinion of Phercydes and Pythagoras, that 
animals have no soul but in material mechanism, was com¬ 
bated and overthrown by Lactantius, Porphyry, Plutarch, 
the Cardinal Tolet, St. Thomas, Zerbus, Arnobius, and 
others. That intelligence is a common principle propor¬ 
tioned out to all living natures, as taught by the venerable 
Hippocrates, prevailed with the little truth that lived, during 
the middle ages, we have the authority of Philoponus, 
Albertus Magnus, Cardan, Magius, Laurent Valla. 

A thing marvellous. This intelligence of animals so often 
denied, so often declared, which is said to have taught men 

* Traite des Animaux. 


376 RAPID HISTORY OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 

first the use of many medicines in disease, in modern times 
has yielded its inspiration to the geometricians, and enabled 
them to go beyond the old boundaries, and walk in new 
paths of truth. The hexssdral cells of the honey-bee, sug¬ 
gested to Maclaurin, and other mathematicians, what with¬ 
out, their genius could not reach—the convenient data— 
upon which the maximum and minimum of varying ratios 
might be calculated. 

Many look upon the instinct of animals, as supplying in 
them the place of reason in our own species. Misled by 
this opinion, Locke refused instinct to man. Hutchinson 
and Shaftesbury opposed, and overthrew him in this par¬ 
ticular, which enjoyed the concurrence of Reid, D. Stewart, 
Priestley, Smellie. 

We all remember the beautiful eulogia of Darwin upon 
instinct, particularly that of insects. Cudworth explained 
all instincts by the operations of the “plastic force.” With 
Leibnitz they meet an easy understanding by the movement 
of the monads in the system of his pre-established harmony; 
who with other philosophers thought it not unworthy of the 
plans of the Divine Being, to assign brutes a paradise for 
the enjoyment of another life.—And especially, since many 
of them suffer much cruelty and injustice from us here; 
and some, after a laborious life in our service, yield them¬ 
selves food by a premature, unmerited, and violent death. 
Plutarch and Rorarius lavish praises upon them for abstain¬ 
ing from excesses, vices; for their virtues; for leading a 
life more in accordance with the laws of nature, and making 
a wiser, better use of their mental faculties than men. 

Pliny thought the smaller class of animals were the best 
specimens for the successful observation of their instincts. 
Some German philosophers, out of the spirit and sense of 
Pliny altogether, maintain the intellectual faculties are great 
in proportion to the diminutiveness of the organization. 
They look upon matter as detrimental, and opposed in its 
very nature to all intellectual activity. Dr. Christ. Krause 
of this school, conceives the soul of the microscopic animal- 
cula to be vast and sublime beyond all comprehension. 


CIVIL HISTORY OF THE MIND. 


377 


Properties or faculties. 

Very great doubt and difficulty exist as to the exact 
number of these. Bacon, after the ancients, admitted two 
souls:—The one sensitive; has for faculties, sensibility and 
voluntary movements; the other reasonable — faculties— 
understanding, reason, memory, imagination , appetite , and 
will. Martini admits only three : Appetites, sentiments, pas¬ 
sions : Richerand, nine: sensation, perception, attention, 
memory, imagination, association, comparison, judgment, 
reasoning. De Brosses establishes three faculties; the will, 
intelligence, memory: Descartes, four: the will, understand¬ 
ing, imagination, sensibility. Hobbes, two: to know, and to 
move, of which he made four divisions. All thought, accord¬ 
ing to Vauvenargues is composed of reflection, imagination , 
recollection. According to Broussais, founding himself upon 
the axiom of MM. Cabanis and Destutt-de-Tracy, que 
penser d est, sentir, the power of reflection constitutes the 
character of the intellect. The essence of all its faculties 
is feeling ; and all its operations are included in the propo¬ 
sition, —I feel myself feel. 

T. Brown made no faculties; but regarded all the mental 
acts only as the varied states of the mind itself Condillac- 
discovered the first—worthy of the brass and the marble— 
that signs or language is as essential to the production as to 
the expression of thought. He made sensation, attention, 
comparison, judgment, reflection, imagination, and reasoning, 
faculties. M. Diderot reduced all the phenomena of mind 
to the memory of sounds, and imagination. The number of 
faculties, however, which seems to enjoy the most universal 
consent, are sensation or perception, judgment, memory, and 
imagination. 


32 


378 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


CHAPTER XII. 

INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS—FACULTIES. 

Sensibility, one of the laws of the plastic organic nature, 
as already, is the condition, common base of all these opera¬ 
tions, as it is of all the acts which organize the body. It 
forms the sole active union between the material, organic, and 
spiritual economies; and its action always intervenes the res 
sensa , and the res sentiens. It has many modifications as 
has the nervous organ—its seat. Upon these modifications 
depend all the diversity of our perceptions and ideas, the 
elements of so many separate sciences. 

By some of these operations we know the objects of an 
external world; by others, the relations of our organs to these 
objects, or our wants. The ideas, to which these two 
classes give rise, form all the physical and moral sciences. 
By others again, we know the diseased acts of our organs; 
—the emanating ideas is medicine. Accordingly these ope¬ 
rations form three classes correspondent to three sorts of 
senses and impressions. 

In the perception of some objects we feel no interest—like 
or dislike; in that of others, we feel an interest, are affected 
In the first, the brain simply concurs; in the second, the 

internal nervous system. In consequence of this difference, 

» 

philosophers have felt themselves warranted in dividing all 
the mind’s acts into two classes ;—the knowing and pathetic ; 
or the intellectual and moral. Since our wants look externally, 
and disease does not—is not moral, a third class should be 
added to comprehend it— pathological. 


SENSATION—PERCEPTION. 


379 


FIRST CLASS—INTELLECTUAL. 

SECTION I. 

SENSATION-PERCEPTION. 

In rigorous definition, sensation, from sensatio, sensus, 
sentio, I feel, expresses only the action of the sensitive organ 
affected. But this action simply does not provoke the mind 
to activity ; and, without the concurrence of the conducting 
nerve and brain, is nothing—cannot say, I feel. If the mind 
reacted directly on impressions, or the stimulated senses, 
then sensation and perception would be different phenomena. 
But since the consecutive efforts of other organs are indis¬ 
pensable, no distinction between the two can be made with 
profit or propriety. Attention is often necessary to secure 
the successful action of the brain and conducting nerves. 

Hie —tanti cinxerunt aethera nimbi; 

—et inhorruit unda tenebris. 

Nature creating instruments is always rich and varied in 
the results she obtains. The brain, we know, is formed of 
a great number of very different parts. If all these parts be 
engaged in fulfilling the conditions necessary to the recipro¬ 
cal intercourse of our two natures, from all we can observe 
of the physical laws, we ought to think, the impressions 
brought to it are modified according to the number of the 

O . o 

parts. Sensation, then, the finished action, must differ 
greatly from the simple external movement in which it 
begins. However few or many of its parts may be engaged 
in achieving anv sensation, without its concurrence, this 
sensation does not exist. The brain is necessarily a central 
organ. All the nerves meet in it directly, or through the 
spinal axis, that they may conduct the impressions made on 
all the external senses to its focus. But the affair of percep¬ 
tion does not terminate here; at the moment of the mind’s 
reaction, this focus reflects it back to the sense whence it 
came. Hence the delusion and misnomer of sensation ; as 
if the mind was seated in the sense impressed. 


380 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


M. Gall, the founder of a neo-iatrological school, has ad¬ 
vanced, the whole brain is not indiscriminately active in 
achieving any one description of mental phenomena; but 
that its separate parts answer to the distinct faculties of the 
mind; and, accordingly, he divided it into a number of re¬ 
gions or organs. With all their labors, his disciples have 
added but little, that is substantial, to the ebauche of their 
master. The philosophical ideas of Gall, prostituted in our 
day by ignorant persons under the practice of craniology , 
form the most hateful imposition—charlatanry. The im¬ 
proved sense of mankind must revenge the wrong. The 
noise this system has made is dying away in other noises 
of the world; and will probably soon be looked upon by all 
the learned, only as an ingenious, fanciful idea of a great 
man. 

Wherever, however, the truth may rest, in Gall’s or other 
systems, the brain, we know, is the mind’s achieving instru¬ 
ment. And to supply the world with thought out of the 
crude action of matter by such an instrument, it would ap¬ 
pear, if I may so speak, it has cost nature much toil and 
development of much skill.—Senses with a variety of con¬ 
formations to seize, and concentrate this action; nerves look¬ 
ing centrally for its transmission, multiform construction of the 
brain, manifest the order of Divine ideas—skill—which pre¬ 
ceded, from which such arrangement, contrivance emanated. 
The senses planted separately on the periphery of the body; 
their different adaptations to receive the actions only of a 
definite number of the forms of matter, as light, odors, &c. 
—the winding of this action along all the nerves of sense to 
the central focus, where we may think, each action of each 
sense undergoes a change peculiar to itself—would all in¬ 
spire the belief, that our two natures possess very decided 
and marked peculiarities; and, that on the one side, the great 
nervous organ neutralizes, librates against all the forces of 
matter, and on the other, restrains thought to its just pro¬ 
portions. 

M. Gall has correctly enough said, “ a sensation is the 
perception of any irritation whatever.” A perception is any 


EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


331 


irritation felt. These irritations take place in the parenchy¬ 
ma ot the organs, as in the senses proper. Their perceptions 
are either external or internal. 


SECTION II. 

EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 

\ ery different from the internal senses, a perception of 
this sort, we know, commences in a movement foreign to all 
the sensitive organs. In the one case, it is the movement of 
the organise which stimulates to sensation; in the other, 
the movement of the material universe. This latter move¬ 
ment, which fills all space, we know also never varies or 
intermits for a moment, as is manifest from the phenomena 
of the cosmic, chemic and other attractions. Its eternal 
uniformity constitutes the individuality, identity of our per¬ 
ceptions of all external objects through all ages. 

This movement impresses on the sensitive organs a 
change, which, as above, it is highly probable, is of a charac¬ 
ter peculiarly molecular or polarish. The change itself may 
consist in a disturbance of the equilibrium simply of the 
tenuous, nervous molecules, which are in accumulation 
about them; and prevented from radiation, as I have sup¬ 
posed, by the liquor which moistens them. This change, 
whatever it be, constitutes impression. By a law not pro- 
foundable of the nerves leading from the senses, the impres¬ 
sion passes along them, is percolated, as I may say, through 
their plexuses to the encephalic focus, where it becomes the 
cause of a new change in the state of this organ. This last 
change stimulates—or is the immediate antecedent of the 
mind’s reaction, which is perception. 

Since the nervous system holds under its sovereign domi¬ 
nation all living motions, it must excel in vitality all other 
structures. And the subtile, incoercible form of matter, it 
secretes from the arterial blood, attested, believed now by 
so many able, experimental philosophers, the most organized 
of all living substances, must enjoy a still higher, more sove- 

32 * 


382 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


\ 


reign life. All experiments—the great force ol reason 
quadrate in favor of this form of matter of such pre-eminent 
life, beinor the immediate active agent which receives and 
conveys the impression of all external bodies in sensation \ 
and transmits the motion to the muscles in all volition.^ 

* This polaroid exhalation or secretion of the nervous tissue alTects none 
of our senses. Many of the chemical elements, agents, are in the same pre¬ 
dicament ; yet no chemist doubts their existence. They are manifested to 
his reason by their active agency ; or in the sensible changes they produce 
in other bodies ; and are as tangible to his mind as if impressed there by 
the senses. 

The same sort of evidence demands likewise existence for this mobile, 
nervous agent; the mind infers it, feels it in a host of phenomena inexplica¬ 
ble without it. Behold the great mass of the nervous substance contained 
in the cranial and thecal cavities ; how small is the proportion contained in 
the nerves, which is to supply all the organs of the body. The only manner 
of distribution, too, is by filamentation ; and in the filaments the nervous mat¬ 
ter is kept in mass. Upon this view, how can we conceive this matter dif¬ 
fused through every minute part of this body. Every where nutrition is 
active; nutrition implies sensibility, and sensibility the nervous presence. 
Can this presence be everywhere in the body, when so far as can be traced 
the nervous substance is contained in mass even in the last filaments ? If 
we were to suppose the manner of distribution was by lamellation, and the 
nervous substance to excel the malleability of gold, such an idea would be of 
difficult conception. Any hypothesis must give to this substance, as it gene¬ 
rally exists in the body, an amazing tenuity. 

The general expansion of sensibility ; the instantaneousness of vital move¬ 
ments in different and remote parts of the body by a stimulus applied at a 
single point, as at the moment of perception in the brain, the external ob¬ 
ject is felt in the impression-making sense ; in many of the diseased irri¬ 
tations, &c. ; are phenomena, in which the logical mind infers, feels the 
presence of this intangible substance, in the same manner as gravity, invisi¬ 
ble agencies, are felt by the geometrician and chemist.. 

The two hypotheses of the manner in which the functions of the nerves 
are discharged—the one by vibration, the other, by a mobile fluid—have wasted 
ages, and called forth infinite discussion. The latter has been by far the 
most popular. For its advocates it has had Hippocrates, Galen, the Arabs, 
Vieussens, Willis, Steno, most all the anatomists of the last age, Sauvages, 
De Haen, Haller, Descartes, Vanhelmont, Harvey, Burtholin, Baglivi, Bo- 
relli, Spigel, Bonnet, Schelhammer, Senac, and an innumerable host. 

Than the history of the “ animal spirits,” nothing exhibits better the 
emptiness, frolicksomeness of speculation. But in our days, by Dumas. 
Tiedemann, the merits of this subject have been very well weighed, and it 


EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


383 


The 1 unction, which conveys impressions, that of the brain, 
which modifies them for perception, is the most vital. Is 
that, then, which lives, and which thinks, approximated in 
being ? or is intelligence only a higher, more noble order of 
lile, to which the lower or organic, as a mirror, reflects the 
acts of the external universe, empty , shapeless , and they are 
seen possessing tangible , colored form and substance? The 
mechanism of this metamorphosis must ever baffle all in¬ 
quiry. 

There is another phenomenon, to which I have alluded, and 
which accompanies all external perception.—The reaction 
of the mind on the impression modified by the nervous focus, 
rebounds back to the particular sense impressed; and the 
perception is felt there, as is expressed in, “ I feel with my 
hands; I see with my eyes.” This law of retrograde move¬ 
ment is not only operative in all the external perceptions, 
but likewise, in all our internal sensations; and gives to each 
want, each pleasure and pain a locality in the organism. 
There is but one exception to this general law, and that is, 
in the pathological senses, where, in some few instances, the 
order of the nervous distribution prevents its operation. In 
these instances, the sensation is misplaced; or is felt else¬ 
where than in the seat of the primary irritation, which 
stimulated it — a circumstance, wfflich has misled many 
practitioners. This law constitutes the essence of the pas¬ 
sions, as we saw when treating of the dynamical properties 
of perceptions and ideas in the chapter on intellectual me¬ 
chanics. 

According to M. cle la Romiguere, the mind is endowed 
with two properties inseparable from it— passive sensibility , 

reduced to its proper value. That the manner of the nervous action is by a 
subtile fluid, known only by its effects, has been approved of by inductive 
reason and enjoys the general consent. Indeed, in the last analysis we can 
make of the fundamentals of all the physical sciences, what advantage have 
they in this respect ? What are gravity, polarity—all the attractions, pro¬ 
perties, forces, faculties—all the laws of matter—but the convenient ways 
the mind has learnt to behold the phenomena of visible nature ? Are they 
not veritably only the different ways, in which this nature exists to us; and 
can we be any more certain of their existence than we are of the existence 
of this great active agent of the living economy ? 


3S4 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


and activity. This activity is original, innate in it, and a 
fecund source of ideas. The mind is passive in receiving im¬ 
pressions, is modified by them, but active in their perception. 
“Les agens exterieures agissent sur les sens, ceux~ci sur le 
cerveau, et celui-ci sur 1’ ame; elle re^oit ainsi les impressions 
qui lui arrivent, mais en est simplement modifiee, et reste 
absolument passive.—A son tour V ame entre en action, elle 
reagit sur les organs, se modifie elle-meme, deploye toute 
son activite.”* 

But this fundamental activity of M. de la Romiguere does 
not explain this movement, which strikes back on the senses 
in all perception.—An activity, which must be in exercise 
in all the mind’s conceptions, volitions, recollections, pictu- 
rations or fancies—in all the modifications it makes of its 
ideas from past sensations—activity, which, one day, science 
fortunate in futurity, may become the creed of all philoso¬ 
phers, and cover in its great shade the beautiful titles of 
Aristotle, Locke, Cabanis,—the school, which now, for so 
many ages, has tyrannized, and taught, that sensation is the 
only original source of all ideas. 

The movement in question is svnchronous with the mind’s 
act of perception; it is, as it were, the impression recognized 
by the mind, and returned back to the generating sense. If, 
from the feebleness of the impression, or inattention, the 
mind do not recognize, the movement does not return. 
The mind’s reaction, therefore, must be the cause of the 
return. The movement is of the brain or its subtile, mobile 
secretion; the cause which hurls it back is the mind. The 
mind without parts, and yet modifying the direction of 
the action of a material organ, is an impenetrable mystery. 
It is here meet what is material, vital, and moral in our 
being. 

But since the impressions of external objects are only the 
excitements of particular living functions, which can contain 
none of the characteristics of these objects, how comes it that 
we know these objects or an external world ? The imme¬ 
diate object of perception, so far as can be appreciated, is 

* Romiguere—Lemons de Philosophic. 


EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


385 


the action of the intra-cranial focus. This action is the im¬ 
mediate antecedence, the perception, the sequence, the mind 
intermediate to the two. Experience, research can extend 
no farther. It is true, a movement returns back to the senses 
modified by the mind, but this movement is vital,, since it 
is by living organs; and can contain nothing of the form, 
properties, qualities of the object, which first excited the 
sense or began the series. This series may be thus com¬ 
pendiously stated : All matter exists in nature in constant 
effort, motion. This motion is modified by the senses, is 
transmitted, modified by the intra-cranial focus; the same or 
a new motion of the mind itself returns to the senses; and 
we are instantly conscious of external, material existences. 

Between this centric, eccentric movement, and this con¬ 
sciousness, we observe nothing in common. Cause and 
effect here seem to have changed their natural order, and 
stand out on different ground. We do not see what connects 
them in dependence. It is the union of the mortal with the 
immortal, of the diminutive of matter with the infinite of 
mind veiled impenetrably by creation. 

The reaction of perception is returned to the irritated 
parenchyma of the organs or internal senses, the same as to 
the external; and yet the mind sees, hears, tastes, smells 
nothing. It only feels the molecular changes agreeable or 
disagreeable of these organs. It is, then, not this reaction 
which makes it conscious of external material existences. 

Here is the Gordian knot in the science of human nature. 
—The mental phenomena arrange themselves on the side of 
a force, separate from the chemico-vital of the organic body. 
But, some anatomists, like some geometricians, will admit no 
truth, as if all the variety which exists were geometrical and 
anatomical, but what is demonstrable by their science; and 
see nothing in the intellectual acts beyond the compass of 
the organism and properties of matter. These anatomists, 
devoting their days to the science of structure in the constant 
and intense exercise of their senses, their minds acquire 
habits of seeing unfavorable to the conception of functions 


386 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


without visible parts, such as the mind, and thus they rob 
the science of man of its most beautiful ornament. 

The intra-cranial focus, common sensory, the term of all 
organization, living brink, to which all perception can be 
traced, is the deep gulf of shadows. It forms, as I may say, 
the great arena, where was planted early the standard of 
ambition. For man eternally contends with nature for the 
truth she conceals. The insatiable desire of knowing tor¬ 
ments him forever. 

All the knowledge of external objects depends primarily 
upon movements, they excite in the senses, ultimately, upon 
the consecutive movements of the common sensory, in which 
the mind distinguishes their forms, colors, properties. But 
these empty movements, which the mind sees as colored 
figured substances , are not these objects, but changes in the 
organs produced by them, or propagated from them. Pyrrho 
took refuge from the difficulty in unbelief; regarded nature 
and his own existence as pure illusion; and established in 
Greece scepticism on foundations of philosophy with charms 
enough to make partisans. Zeno and Xenophanes conceived 
all motion in matter impossible ; and attributed all the chang¬ 
ing aspects, phenomena of the world, to the illusory play of 
our senses. Amid his beautiful gardens, Plato beheld with 
a sort of ovarian life the images of all external existences in 
the mind, which sensation develops, and arouses to activity. 
Aristotle founded all in sensation, expressed in these famous 
words— Nihil est intellectu quin priiis fuerit in sensu. The 
profound meditations of Leibnitz did not allow him to see 
all the summary phenomena of the mind contained in this 
axiom; and he made this imperishable addition— nisi ipse 
intellectus. On top the deep-founded pile, into which Leib¬ 
nitz had built the understanding, Kant raised up the colossal 
fabric of his system, besides profoundest thought,—remarka¬ 
ble for the heavy shadows, which hang about it. Locke 
subscribed to the axiom of Aristotle. Upon that which we 
perceive in sensation not being the objects, which make the 
impressions, Berkeley commenced, and Hume finished the 


EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


387 


most complete system of scepticism ever offered to the 
world. 

Like the famous conqueror of Asia, Dr. Reid arbitrarily 
cut the Gordian knot by asserting —the irresistible belief of 
an external world on the evidence of the senses is a law of our 
nature. With all the benefits of this law, Brown could not 
arrive at such belief; and felt himself forced to admit a sixth 
sense in what he calls, “ the muscular frame,” as the evidence. 

According to Senateur Destutt-Tracy, all the mental 
phenomena are simply modifications of sensibility; and the 
inertia of bodies is the primary base of all their other forces, 
and the cause of all our knowledge of them. “ Cette propriete 
londamentale des corps que nous nommons force d’ inertie 
est done necessairement la premiere par laquelle nous les 
appercevons. Elle est la base de toutes cedes que nous leur 
connaissons et que nous joignons ensuite a celle-la pour 
former Y idee complete de chacun de ces etres. Sans elle 
nous n’ aurions pas connu les corps etrangers a nous ni 
meme le notre.”* 

The hand passed over a body feels resistance; and the 
mind concludes upon the existence of something foreign to 
itself, and distinct from the moving hand. The muscular 
sense of Brown appreciates this resistance. The value of 
the two hypotheses is the same. The ideas of the French 
philosopher are manifestly the materials from which Brown 
brought forth his muscular sense, and to which he paid only 
a silent homage. 

Fenelon, whom St. Pierre calls divme from the great 
beauty of his mind, evinces, from his definition of an idea, 
he could not conceive the manner in which we acquire a 
knowledge of external things. “ Mais qu’ est ce qu’ une idee ? 
c’ est une lumiere qui est en moi, quin’ est point moi-meme, 
qui me redresse, qui me corrige, qui m’ empeche de me 
tromper, qui m’ entraine par son evidence, qui me frappe 
par sa lumiere; c’ est une regie qui est au dedans de moi, 
de laquelle je ne puis juger, par laquelle il faut au con- 


Elemens d’ Ideologic, tom. i. p. 147. 


388 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


traire, que je juge de tout, si je veux juger.”* This view 
evidently is originally from the gardens of Plato. 

But to recite opinions were endless. There can be but 
two conditions. All our knowledge is due to the intellectual 
faculties stimulated by the senses; or to laws impressed upon 
them for the regulation of their own economy. I believe 
philosophy will, one day, gain greater dominion in the senses, 
will appreciate more closely their actuating forces; and 
evolve a theory of the mental operations much nearer the 
truth. 

The theory of matter, first cause of our ideas, is infinite; 
capable of improvement by successive, innumerable ages of 
our race. The number of worlds it forms in space, whose 
laws to some extent can be ascertained, each of which de¬ 
veloping some new trait in the character of the great Father 
of all being, or throwing out some other in bolder relief, 
will give to natural theology an endless flight; while the 
explorable surface it thus presents to contemplation, com¬ 
pared to the slow motion of the mind, to be travelled over, 
will require time not much short of absolute infinity. 

The study of matter, which flings light upon the Divinity, 
must help likewise to show us the mind. For like the 
mirror, which cannot reflect its own image, the mind, which 
sees every thing beside, cannot turn the light back upon 
itself, and contemplate its own nature. The only means, 
therefore, it has at command of perfecting its own science, 
is in the improvement of the theory of the peculiar mecha¬ 
nism of each sense and of their stimulating forces. And 
since these forces may be polar, and the manner of the action 
of the nerves, or of the subtile fluid which fills them, vehicle 
of the transmission of impressions to the common sensory, 
is most evidently polar, all the discoveries made in the 
laws of the imponderable attractions must become so many 
materials for this improvement. It may be fearlessly laid 
down—the mind will know itself only in proportion as 
it may detect the true nature of the material and organic 
conditions which impel to its activity. And here, as re- 

* CEuvres Philosoph. 


KNOWLEDGE OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD. 389 

spects the latter, the prospect is every way gloomy. Nature 
has limited the power of zootomy to most nothing; and 
many of its truths are doubtful. Could it tear from the 
brain and conducting nerves their coverings, cut fasciculus 
by fasciculus, piece by piece, and observe the order of phe¬ 
nomena, it might detect the use of each part; the precise 
circumstances of the organic-mental movement going to the 
brain and returning back to the senses; and, by changes in 
bodies applied manifesting polarity, to the mass of existing 
evidence, might add its testimony confirming beyond doubt 
this movement to be polar. 

But such examination is not borne. Like Homer’s storm¬ 
footed Iris, life retires instantly, or falls into dysnomy; and 
truth caught at such moments is unfit to rely upon for 
science. Descartes made imaginary dissections of the mind. 
He supposed the abolition of the senses, and then sought 
what it might be in its pure abstraction. But mind without 
senses is unphysical, unsearchable. Deeper research into 
the laws of matter and of vitality will improve the theory of 
the mind, but never solve completely the problem of our 
immortality. For if we knew all the relations, agencies of 
matter and organization, we could then only distinguish the 
sort in action, but not the sort in mind, which receives it. 

ELEMENTS 

Of the theory of our knowledge and belief of an external world. 

I have laid down—the mind can never contemplate itself 
an isolated, solitary force in the universe, and advance in 
the light, or reflect the light back upon itself—that it is the 
mechanical mind alone—mind, an element in the great sys¬ 
tem of reciprocal forces of the world—mind, a branch of 
natural history, which is susceptible of investigation and 
improvement. What is the narrowest ground on which we 
can place its reciprocal action as to what is external, or our 
knowledge and belief of a material world? 

The reaction of perception reverberates alike to the exter¬ 
nal and internal senses—to the irritated parenchyma of the 


33 


390 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


organs as to the irritated organs of the particular senses. And 
the molecular, chemico-vital movement, which, from the 
embryon to the term of life, presides over, conducts in all the 
changes of the organs, stimulates to sensation equally with 
the motion of the external wwld. In these two respects all 
are equal. In parenchymatous sensation, we perceive no¬ 
thing colored, extended; the sensation is simply agreeable 
or disagreeable, as in health and disease, or manifests the 
wants. In sensation by the external senses, w r e perceive 
objects colored, extended, having many properties, qualities, 
to which we give names, defining them. In these two 
respects all are unequal. The reaction of the central organ 
on the irritated sense, which completes sensation, is alike 
in all; and therefore, cannot cause this inequality or differ¬ 
ence. 

What can we discover unequal to account for this differ¬ 
ence ? All the nerves of the internal senses, those immersed 
in the midst of the organs, so far as anatomy can trace, are 
simple in their terminations. But all those of the external 
senses have, as we have seen, peripheric terminations pecu¬ 
liar, inspiring the idea of designs separate from all other 
nerves, with ancillary apparatuses, and ganglia on their 
roots to help out these designs. The motions of the organ¬ 
ism and of the external w^orld are the exciting causes of all 
sensation. The difference in the nerves, the difference in 
the exciting causes, must, therefore, circumscribe the ground 
of our consciousness and belief of a material world. 

Each sense furnishes the intelligence of something dis- 
tinct. All sensations are special in relation to the senses, 
and depend upon specific exciting causes. Thus, the causes 
of vision, olfaction, and audition, immerse the whole body, 
and stimulate only the senses in relation. The molecular 
movement, which excites hunger, thirst, &c., since all parts 
of the body are nourished, must be present everywhere, yet 
these sensations are only felt in particular organs. The 
causes of all sensations, then, are limited in the sphere of 
their activity—limited, as we may justly suppose, in the 
provisions of the living economy. And we may think, were 


KNOWLEDGE OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD. 391 

more of the nerves armed analogously to those of the exter¬ 
nal senses, we should instantly enjoy perceptions new and 
unknown before—that such a change would immediately 
transform the universe and ourselves into spectacles so novel, 
we should not be able to recognize what we before knew and 
ourselves in the altered relations we would be presented. 

There are reasons to justify the belief, that the mechanism 
of activity of all the external senses, is the same, or analo¬ 
gous. In vision, the rays from any object form in the eye 
a luminous cone, which paints as opticians know, the pic¬ 
ture of the object invertedly on the retina, the immediate 
seat of the specific sensibility of the organ. The painting 
of the picture is all that is due to the object in the subse¬ 
quent perception. May we not look upon this picture, as 
containing the true secret of the mechanism of all the other 
external sensations—as the algebraist does upon his x, by 
which he may discover the unknown value of other quanti¬ 
ties ? 

In sketching these senses, I noticed they were all reduced 
to one condition; that all their nerves arose with ganglia; 
that all the terminating extremities of these nerves might be 
considered only as so many variform papillae or retinae; and 
that all the forms of matter, which immediately stimulated 
them, very probably were aeriform or gaseous, and analogous 
to light—similar in their habitudes, and mode of activity. 

Why, then, may they not be analogous in the mechanism 
of their functions? Does nature agitate Jupiter in his orbit 
by one motion, Saturn, by another? or rather, does she not 
supply all her roving progeny above, however may vary the 
ellipticity of the curves, wild the solitudes they traverse, from 
the same, simple, exhaustless source of motion? It is the 
same nature which constructed the senses for activity. 
Should we not follow her simple ways, her easy analogies, 
—copy them in giving shape to our philosophy? and we 
may not believe, in the eye she has one mechanism, by 
which we see an object; in the touch another, by which we 
feel it, et cet.; but, that the mechanism of all these senses 
are the modifications of the same perfect model. 


392 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


The property or quality of this mechanism, which permits 
the light to paint the picture on the retina, may be considered 
the characteristic of this model in all. External objects, 
therefore, produce a modification in each of these senses 
analogous to the picture on the retina, which conspires to 
the same end in seeing, feeling—in all this sort of sensation. 
This end is consciousness in the mind of the external, inde¬ 
pendent existence of the objects. In order that this modifica¬ 
tion take place on the stimulations of bodies, the nerves are ex¬ 
panded in different ways in the immediate seats of the senses, 
which makes them differ so much there from any other part 
of their course. 

The reason, final cause, then, of these expansions, is this 
modification. We behold it only in one of its forms in the 
retinal picture. We cannot know what it may be in the 
other organs. But since they all furnish some intelligence 
of an external world, we must infer its absolute existence in 
all. The functions they perform vindicate their right to it. 
The effects are similar, the producing causes must be similar. 
It is through these pictorial representations impressed, im¬ 
printed by matter, observable only in one form on the retina, 
that the movements of impressions empty, shadowy, passed 
to the panoptic centre, become clothed with form and solid, 
extended substance. But right here cause and effect, as I 
have noticed, occupy strange relations, and arrest abruptly 
the flight of reason and research. 

We see sometimes, in anomalous distribution, the sprig of 
a voluntary nerve passes to the ear, or other such parts, and 
subjects them to the power of volition. Cases very respec¬ 
tably reported exist now of persons, who have beheld in 
themselves intestinal worms, their own viscera, and marked 
accurately the progress and appearance of disease in them. 
Can the plastic power of inflammation develop papillae? or 
are the nerves supplying these viscera, in some extremely 
rare cases, armed with anomalous papillae, on which the vis¬ 
cera impress the pictorial representation of which I have 
spoken; and thus subject them to the empire of the external 
senses, as anomalous voluntary nerves subject parts not volun- 


PERCEPTIONS OF PARTICULAR SENSES. 


393 


tary to volition? Who shall be able to demonstrate this true, 
will establish the fundamental principles of this theory.* 

SECTION III. 

EXTERNAL PERCEPTIONS OF PARTICULAR ORGANS, SIGHT, TOUCH, ETC. 

Sight is the amplest, noblest of the senses, since by it the 
mind enjoys the greatest freedom, asserts its empire over the 
universe; and light, which stimulates it, reigns universally 
a present, governing force. 

Since the revival of learning in Europe, from their high 
rank, light and vision have enjoyed a monopoly in the studies 
of most all ranks of philosophers. Pretty early, two great 
geniuses, Newton and Descartes, of two great nations, rivals 
in sciences as in the arts of war, evolved their theories 
on light.—The one, that it consists in exceedingly minute 
particles propagated in straight lines from luminous bodies; 
the other, that it is an invisible fluid existing everywhere, 
but requires to be agitated to produce its effects. On each 
side pretty generally philosophers arranged themselves for 
experimental investigation, among whom were Euler, Gri¬ 
maldi, Mairan, Melville, Biot, Wollaston, Barrow, Molyneux, 
Mitchell, Wallis, Hooke, Bouguer, Priestley. 

If knowledge sprung up in the inquiry, darkness sprang 
up also. Both theories presented insuperable difficulties; 
the scale turned in favor of Newton’s. With all the 
acknowledged succor of geometry, we cannot know light— 
light! the beauty, glory of the world—minister of life ex¬ 
panding, diffusing everywhere—modified by all substances, 
greedily drunk up by all—its everlasting torrent raging 

* Would it not be desirable, the bodies of all such persons, if any there 
really be, endowed with this preternatural vision, should be subjected to the 
autopsy of able anatomists, such as Tiedemann, Mecle ?—Is it not possible, 
these misplaced papillae, or the organic modifications, by which these vis¬ 
cera represent themselves in the intra-cranial mirror and find access to the 
mind, might be detected? Powerful microscopes might be employed with 
advantage. 


33* 


t 




394 INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 

onward, the supplying fountain remaining the same through 
the waste of all ages—a few particles falling on the eye 
presenting the boundless scene of nature.—The ingenious, 
laborious experiments of Dalton, Mitchell, with the most 
powerful lenses, the arguments, and conclusions of Priestley 
on those of the latter, serve to evince scarcely any mate¬ 
riality in light. Supposing the sun to be of the density of 
water, Priestley, however, reasoned out by his dim torches, 
that 670lbs. of his substance given off, would illuminate the 
universe for 6000 years. But what are such calculations 
but mere mathematical conjectures? 

Whatever, however, be the nature, we know light in its 

course is modified both by the atmosphere, and the objects 

■which transmit it to the eve in vision. The various colors 

»/ 

with which bodies are clothed, are proof of the changes, 
they effect in it. And it is very probable, the quantity 
required for vision is inconceivably small. The experiments 
of M. D’Arcy prove its impression remains on the retina 
two minutes and forty seconds. Since the luminous parti¬ 
cles would move in this time 32,000,000 miles, it follows, 
that constant vision would be kept up by particles moving 
32,000,000 miles from one another. Nature too only allows 
the use of a limited portion in vision, since the amount is 
constantly regulated by the action of the pupil. 

When, therefore, we consider the gross volume and 
weight of the retina, compared to the extreme smallness of 
the quantity, the great tenuity, almost incorporeal nature of 
light, the theory of impressions by vibration, shock, mecha¬ 
nical impulsion, becomes imaginary, untenable. Each of 
these modes of motion necessitates in the cause the property 
of impenetrable extension, which cannot be proved to exist 
in light. Indeed, the sort of body this substance forms, 
savors but very little of common materiality. And, under 
such views, if we admit the neologism, rather neoplatonism, 
of Kcenisberg, Shelling—their school of famous philosophy 
—where shall w T e find in light the cause and the proof of 
the copious oxydations, and other chemical changes in the 


PERCEPTIONS OF PARTICULAR SENSES. 395 

retina and nervous organ, in which they make the sensation 
of vision to consist. 

The light paints the retina; the whole structure, except 
the pupil, appears to be perfectly passive. In the painting 
a change occurs initial to perception. This change, since 
the mind’s act follows to which it is initial, we may con¬ 
ceive to consist in a movement imparted by the luminous 
molecules painting to the molecules of the peculiar substance 
secreted by the nervous pulp, which forms as already an 
atmosphere about this sense, as about the seats of all the 
other external senses. The painting molecules, or the light 
is modified by the objects reflecting it. This modification 
appears to form the only relation between the visual organs, 
and the objects affecting them; and constitutes the founda¬ 
tion of the individuality of their perceptions, or the mind’s 
means of identifying them. 

All experiments show, it is not the surface of bodies, 
which immediately reflects the incident rays, but that the 
reflection is inductively due to a subtile, aeriform, igniform 
substance, which saturates, forms about them atmospheres, 
operative only at a very small distance. All the bodies of 
nature appear to hold a quantity of this substance propor¬ 
tional to their specific capacities, which displays its effects 
when this specific capacity or equilibrium is disturbed, as 
in the action of the magnet, voltaic pile, combustion, the 
electric machine. 

From the rapid modifications of sensibility by stimuli, 
and the phenomena of the action of the nerves, we have seen 
likewise the highest evidence, that a fluid not less aeriform 
fills them, and envelops the immediate seats of all the ex¬ 
ternal senses. These two substances—the one saturating, 
covering the surface of all bodies, the other enveloping all 
the organs of these senses—may be regarded as reciprocally 
active in all their perceptions. Two substances, therefore, 
of amazing exility—the one existing in definite proportions 
in all bodies, the probable cause of all their revolutions in 
space, of all their changes of form ; the other evolved by the 
nervous structure in assimilation, operative in all living 


396 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


changes, phenomena—appear to he immediately concerned 
in all the intercourse of our intelligence with the outward 
universe. The former, which immediately, as we have seen, 
reflects the light in vision, operates, we may think, itself—a 
kindred substance—in achieving all the other sensations of 
smell, touch, taste and hearing. And since it is active only 
at a small distance, hence the contact of bodies directly or 
by intervention, is indispensable in all these sensations. 

Accordingly, then, to these views, the organs of sense 
brought in contact with bodies, disturb the equilibrium of 
this subtile substance they hold. A reciprocal movement is 
thus excited in the tenuous substance accumulated about the 
senses, which ends in perception. In this movement, 
bodies impress their images or what answers the end of 
images on all the organs. In vision they effect their repre¬ 
sentations by the aid of light; in all the other senses, by the 
aid of the imponderable substance or substances they hold, 
which, when agitated, become light, heat, motion, evincing 
they belong to the order of corporeal modifications, of which 
the solar rays form one. If, therefore, through these rays, 
bodies paint their images, make their representative impres¬ 
sions on the retina, through substances similar to light, they 
make these same impressions on all the other external senses 
—condition, as I have said, of our knowledge of their forms, 
qualities, properties. 

Conformably, if we suppose the nerves of our senses ter¬ 
minated without expansions or modifications of structure to 
receive the representative impressions, in the action of all 
external objects, we should have perceived none of their 
forms or qualities, had no need of language in relation to 
them, and been presented with sensations simply agreeable 
or disagreeable, which we should have referred to some inter¬ 
nal source. As regards the manner of this action itself, or 
of the action, by which objects excite perceptions, all the 
phenomena, all the facts above cited, indicate it to resemble 
that, by which the sun excites motion in the planets, which 
is always in two opposite directions or polar. And as to the 
senses, we may look upon them as so many mirrors sus- 


PERCEPTIONS OF PARTICULAR SENSES. 397 

pended round the soul on the body’s exterior, reflecting the 
images of perceptible things, through which, when impressed, 
it looks out in its reaction on the universe. 

The ideas, then, of figure, magnitude, time, distance,'space, 
cannot be due to any one sense. Several of them must com¬ 
bine to furnish the separate elements. The field all such ideas 
occupy, with the weakness inseparable from human medita¬ 
tion, has been passed over with various success by Locke, 
Condillac, Reid, Berkeley, as well as by other systematic 
and monographic writers of the actual epoch, to whom we 
abandon their subject. 

From the developments of this section, it is manifest— 
that, since no bodies in nature act directly on our senses, or 
exert any influence upon them, except through the reflected 
rays of light, and the imponderable substances they hold, it 
follows ,—we only know matter as the remote cause of our 
ideas . And, since all perception is motion, and pure intelli¬ 
gence or perception without manifesting organs,—without 
motion, is wholly inconceivable—the weight, density, smooth¬ 
ness, roughness, all the properties and qualities of bodies, 
must be to us simply what our sensations make them. What 
they may be over and above, or in themselves, we cannot 
know. M. Destutt-Tracy saw the truth :—“ Were we either 
wholly spiritual or material, we could not know matter.” 
Being material, in the action of the senses, of the nervo-ce- 
phalic focus, we have the material elements of sensation; 
spiritual, we have in the action of the mind, sensation. 

These vital movements of our material organization hold 
in their subordinating union our spirit. They were insti¬ 
tuted by the veracious Creator. They are his reports to. our 
intelligence of an ambient world of matter; and our nature 
urges us to believe, rely on the evidence, though we cannot 
profound the law on which the truth itself rests. 


398 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


SECTION IV. 

PERCEPTIONS OF THE INTERNAL SENSES. 

Through the class of perceptions just reviewed, the senses 
to which they correspond, located on the exterior of the body, 
help to sustain it in constant and suitable relation with ex¬ 
ternal objects. These perceptions themselves are only modifi¬ 
cations of the mind produced by these objects. We directly 
feel, know them. They constitute all these objects are to 
us. And the mind, by a law of its nature, indirectly or 
through its perceptions, is conscious of the presence of the 
objects stimulating the senses. 

What the objects are in themselves, or over and beyond 
what the intelligence furnished by their stimulations, make 
them to us, I have said, we cannot know. From the great 
and persevering imperfection of the physical sciences, it is 
highly probable, matter remains principally unknown, un¬ 
knowable,—that our actual knowledge of it, the knowledge of 
which is mainly the measure of all arts, civilization, is com¬ 
paratively nothing. Indeed, it would appear from the consti¬ 
tution of the wrnrld, and the universal psychology of animated 
beings, no more knowledge is admitted or given than is neces¬ 
sitated by the conservation and comfort of life in all the species. 

Were our minds by the exertion of innate power, capable 
of spontaneous perceptions, or perceptions independently of 
corporeal impressions, then we should behold around us the 
Berkeleyan or ideal world of matter. This world enjoying 
existence only in our perceptions, would be purely phantas- 
matic. But since all external perceptions commence in the 
senses by the arbitrary stimulations of matter; and are 
developed according to the order of nature, and not according 
to a pre-established order in the mind itself, as some philo¬ 
sophers have supposed, there can exist no normal spontaneity 
of perception. And, since in the reaction of all such percep¬ 
tions, the mind is as conscious of external, material existences 
in the senses, as it is of the acts by which it perceives them, 
the material world can but be real and not ideal. 


INTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


399 


The occasional apprehension, or seeing of ghosts—appa¬ 
ritions, in which the common sensory loses equilibrium, 
and the mind reacts upon the sense of sight without its being 
impressed, the same as in common vision, cannot adept this 
argument. For all such apprehensions are aberrations from 
the nat ural order, and the spontaneity of perception, abnormal. 

It is obvious the welfare, conservation of our existence is 
predicated upon the intercourse of the objects by which we 
are surrounded. We live amid their excitements and influ¬ 
ences, which tend equally to death as to life. If in respira¬ 
tion the air vivifies, it poisons by its miasma. If the zephyr 
refreshes, the tempest dashes to pieces. The same sun which 
warms, will burn. The road we travel lies over the preci¬ 
pice, as over the even plain. The forces we are now expending 
result from the food taken at the hour past; it is wasting by 
all the absorptions and excretions, and must be resupplied 
at the hour coming, for the fountain of life does not flow of 
itself, but is elicited forth by the intercourse of these objects. 
They aliment our being; are its materials in reserve ; and 
require to be regularly dosed, apportioned out, to meet our 
continual wants. Nature achieves this apportionment by 
endowing them with properties to arbitrarily stimulate the 
senses, and cause perceptions. The mind, in its turn, reacts 
upon the senses they stimulate, and is assured of their pre¬ 
sence. It appreciates their influences, and exercises its 
motive power on the organism accordingly, to secure the 
good, and avoid the evil, to which end volition was given. 
If, therefore, accordingly, the perceptions of sensitive beings 
were spontaneous and illusory, their existence, for a moment, 
in a world of such active forces as ours, were impracticable, 
impossible. Their existence is absolute demonstration, that 
the cause of our external perceptions, or matter, is real being, 
to which the senses are the measure of knowledge. But let 
us pass from the review, and deductions of the two preceding 
sections, to the internal senses and their perceptions. 

By these we are apprised of our wants, or of the relations 
of our organs with the external materials of their composi¬ 
tion—with all that is needful to them. They are, therefore, 


400 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


equally with those of the external senses, the safeguards of 
the economy. They excite the will, and expend a large 
amount of its action in the achievement of their demands. 

Truth refusing the noble mind of Locke, revealed herself 
to Cabanis.* The internal senses are a source of perceptions 
to the mind, through which the action of the achieving will 
takes place—there are innate ideas. “ Cette philosophic,says 
Madame de Stael, (the philosophy which makes the external 
senses the only source of ideas,) “ livre 1’ entendement humain 
a T empire des objets exterieurs.—L’ immortalite,” continues 
the illustrious daughter of Necker, “ de V ame et le sentiment 
du devoir, sont des suppositions tant a fait gratuites dans le 
systeme qui fonde toutes nous idees sur nos sensations; car 
nulle sensation ne nous revele 1’ immortalite de 1’ ame dans 
la mort.” 

Had Locke known these senses, he would not have refused 
instinct to man. Founding himself, as he did, on the fun¬ 
damental ideas of Aristotle, which, for so many ages, had 
been fostered in the bosom of the church protected by the 
powerful aegis of religious fanaticism, and ecclesiastical 
authority, his mind could not contemplate their philosophy. 
He could only see ideas as the offspring of the external 
senses. Time had reserved for the triumphant logic of M. 
de la Romiguere, a signal victory—the glory of extinguish¬ 
ing forever the impure light—the colossal ideas emanated 
from the Lyceum of Aristotle, which had usurped the empire 
of human intelligence, and, for so many centuries, swayed 
over it the sceptre of the most absolute despotism. 

Another step has been made; there exists really the homo 
duplex. The understanding is not limited to the sole do¬ 
minion of external objects. Through his external senses, 
man beholds the universe, amid which he is placed to exist. 
He sees himself through his internal senses as connected 
w T ith it, and appreciates his conservative relations. It is 
through these senses he becomes interested. Accordingly, 
an individual with the external senses only, if such were 
possible, would be an idle and disinterested spectator. These 

* Vid. Rapports. 


INTERNAL PERCEPTIONS. 


401 


senses would intimate to him the simple existence of things. 
These things would be connected with him only through 
his bare intelligence, not through his organization. They 
could excite nor like nor dislike, pleasure nor pain, joy nor 
sorrow. He could neither know good nor evil, be moral nor 
religious; but would enjoy a perfect amnesty, seclusion from 
all emotion. The rage of war, the calm of peace; the star-lit, 
blue-topt mountain, the fierce volcano; the sound of the flute, 
the noise of the hurricane; the bride at the nuptial altar, or 
at the martyr’s stake; the presence of the dark-haired, blush¬ 
ing beauty or the statue which represents her, were to him 
alike. 

Among the elements of our being, these senses must make 
up a considerable portion. They give to it its coloring. 
Between our organic existence, and that outside of us, they 
form the bond of union and reciprocal activity. The gan¬ 
glionic nervous system appears to be the great instrument 
through which their actions are principally expressed; for 
without the nervous substance, the mind does not come forth 
in action, or modify its phenomena. This system has many 
connections with the cerebro-spinal. Thus man anatomi¬ 
cally is articulated with himself internally; and enjoys with 
nature externally a double union. 1. He knows things; 2. 
he calculates with some certainty, knows them with their 
value to himself. 

Every molecule of the organic whole exists constantly in 
the sphere, and recognizes this system as the source of its 
animation. This system, the right arm of universal organi¬ 
zation, prescribes the laws to nutrition, or conducts in the 
chemico-vital movement. It is by its fiat there are bone, 
tendon, muscle—a diversity of animalific tissues. The 
persevering identity of the living forms of the same species, 
is evidence, the law-making power intrusted to it at creation 
has not been violated. The outward world is the great 
store-house, whence are derived the materials upon which 
it exercises its transforming power. It fashions many of 
the tissues with the names, as I may say, of the things it 
wants from this store-house, written upon them. 


34 


402 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


Like Newton, Broussais reached nature in demonstration, 
at the end of a long line of thought extending back through 
ages. He added a single atom of thought to the end of this 
line, “All the internal surfaces are surfaces of relation.'’ 
They are surfaces on which burn the flame of desire, This 
desire is the expression of the senses of which they are the 
seats. Through the encephalo-spinal nerves, with which 
some of them are partially supplied, or the ganglionic nervous 
centre, and its connections, this desire is transmitted to the 
brain. The brain irritated, the mind feels or perceives the 
condition of the tissues or wants of the economy. Thus the 
internal organs, through the arrangement of their nerves, 
can transmit the impressions originated in their changes to 
the common sensory, and cause perceptions, ideas in the 
mind. 

The external senses, I may say, perceive all objects in¬ 
discriminately alike. The internal senses distinguish be¬ 
tween them; make a choice; solicit or repel. The mind’s 
reaction upon an outward impression received in the brain, 
is radiated or passes back to the sense impressed, and the 
object is then felt. The same reaction synchronously is 
transmitted by the nerves to the seats of the internal senses; 
the object is then felt or perceived in relation to the economy. 
The mind thus perceiving by the internal as by the external 
senses, orders the acts of volition accordingly as the object 
may be desirable or repellable. In this manner is achieved 
all alimentation, and a due relation maintained between the 
living organic and anorganic bodies of nature. 

The external supporters continually vary the intensity 
of their action on living bodies, which as continually require 
new adjustments in relation to them. In their formative 
action, these bodies constantly waste their substance, which 
as constantly needs to be resupplied. The internal senses, 
through the nerves, which preside over this action, gain 
access to the auditory of the common sensory, and speak 
out their wants vocally to the mind—secure the proper 
adjustments to the supporters, and the repairing materials. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


403 


Equally with the external senses, therefore, they are kept, 
during the hours of wakefulness, in incessant activity. 

Thus the wants of animals necessitate for them a prodi¬ 
gious intercourse of their world. The support they need 
from it, the amounts they organize, make it every thing to 
them. In its incessant, innumerable stimulations, they expe¬ 
rience a certain amount of good and evil. In these two 
respects man far excels. And though he be the most dainty, 
the most repulsive in his appetites—a fleeting shadow—a 
phantom in the abyss of time, on his passage to the natural 
grave, as may be calculated from the statistic tables of Sanc- 
torius, he receives about 100,000 pounds of its substance, 
which he organizes, and returns. What a prodigious amount 
of matter to combine in one life, brought together through 
the agency of internal sensations! and how great the internal 
nervous force to effect such combination! In its operations 
by the internal, by all the senses, the mind shows itself the 
flambeau of nature, which lights the footsteps of animals, 
through the different routes of existence. 


SECTION V. 

PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 

These, as their name imports, are only developed in the 
deviations of the organism from health. The mind refers 
them to the seats of the primary irritation, the same as all 
other sensations. Hence, as I have said, these seats are 
entitled to the name of senses. 

Some physicians estimate the deviations from health in 
civilized man, at about 1200—ample, rich heritage of mor¬ 
tality. The number admitted by the nosologists is suffi¬ 
ciently great, as is manifest from the tables of Linnaeus, 
Sauvages, Cullen, Vogel, Sagar, Pinel.—However few or 
many may be the distinct affections of the organs constituting 
disease, we know they all modify the mind. This class of 
perceptions or sensations, therefore, comprehends all between 
the simple feeling of uneasiness and the pain of death; and 


404 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


constitutes a respectable portion of the mental phenomena. 
In high stimulations, enteritis, chronic irritations of the 
chylopoietic viscera, slow organic wastings from the passions, 
deliria of fevers, cephalitis, all the neuralgias, various species 
of insanity, spectral illusions, somnambulism, animal mag¬ 
netism, et cet. these sensations are modified almost to infinity, 
presenting the mind with many distinct phases. To write 
their history would be a great labor for one man; we will 
only notice a few of them with some reflections. 

ARTICLE I. 

In Somnambulism. 

From somnambulismus , somnus sleep, and ambulo I walk. 
This curious, mysterious affection of the sensitive system 
has been known from all antiquity. Aristotle, Galen, Di¬ 
ogenes Laertius, Fracastor, Schenchius, a number of writers 
of all epochs, have spoken of it. Galen himself was attacked 
by it. The affection exists; I will in preference give a re¬ 
cent example of it. 

The S. family were disposed to enjoy their friends in a 
social way. At the hour appointed, the invited guests 
poured in; and, amid this elegant and fashionable assemblage, 
the moments passed gaily on until near 1 o’clock at night, 
when it was expected to retire. At this moment they were 
occupying their seats, the noise of the music and the dance 
having just ceased, when the door suddenly opened; the 
figure of a female sdiabillee robe de cliambre entered, advan¬ 
ced, and stood motionless near the centre of the room. The 
bright lights burning showed the features cold, white, im¬ 
movable, with some distortion, the eyes nearly closed. The 
hair voluminous, of radiant black, fell loose far down over the 
shoulders, heightening much the color it shaded. The limbs 
were all motionless as a statue, some appearances of blood 
disfiguring the lower extremities. With some alterations 
the figure might have been taken for one of Diana’s train 
just returned from the rugged chase of Ida.— Spumantes apri 
cursum damore prementem—hie errantem , dederatq comam 
diffundere ve?itis, nuda genu. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


405 


All eyes were instantly fixed on the apparition. There it 
stood, the form a fair model of loveliest humanity, but the 
appearance, any thing beside. The features by the bright¬ 
ness ot the light, and shade of the hair, showed in unearthly 
transparency, inspiring the sensation strongly of a visitress 
from another sphere. 

The faces of the sensitives turned pale, and they rushed 
away from the room with the shriek of terror. Their gay 
and assiduous attendants smit with the sight, precipitated 
after them, to support them in their alarm, escaping from 
the behests of this unwelcome messenger from the dreamy 
land. Soon Col. S. discovered himself standing alone, gaz¬ 
ing steadfastly on the apparition, which had entered his 
house. His daughter, Miss S. recovering a little, having 
discovered her father was still within, returned directly to 
the side of the partition door to venture another glance; 
when she exclaimed wildly, “ Oh! it is the features of cousin 
Caroline; she is dead, and they have not had time to let us 
know.” 

In those beautiful features veiled by demon power, Miss 
S. alone could discover the imprints, faint gleamings of the 
pure spirit, whose sweet love was another life in her. Em¬ 
boldened by this discovery, she darted into the room, and 
arranging herself behind her father, urged him to approach, 
reiterating, in the most tender and endearing accents, “ Caro¬ 
line, oh! Caroline!” The cries of Miss S. produced no effect 
on the apparition; it continued still motionless, immovable. 
Her father approached, and grasped it firmly by the shoul¬ 
ders; still no change ensued. The touch was nearly that of 
ice. Miss S., convinced of the manifestations of flesh and 
blood, with him shook the apparition violently with much 
noise and agitation. The eyes then began to vibrate rapidly, 
a sort of shivering or convulsive movement was manifest in 
the whole body. These momentary symptoms giving way, 
Caroline opened her eyes, and was instantly convicted of 
her true situation, but perfectly unconscious of the causes 
which had led to it. 

Circumstances .—Besides being relations, Miss S. and 


34* 


406 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


Caroline had received the same amiable nature. Educated 
in the same school, they had been friends from early infancy; 
and were in the habit of spending much time with each 
other. Their homes were about two miles apart; a private 
foot-way lay between, which they were accustomed to go 
when visiting. This foot-way crossed a creek; there was a 
good passage over the rocks in common flood. Above, at 
some distance, lay a log from bank to bank, high above the 
water, the passage when the stream was up, but neither ever 
had courage to cross it at any time. The path in many 
places was precipitous and rugged. 

The day preceding the party, an immense amount of rain 
had fallen, which now had greatly swollen the stream foam¬ 
ing down its rocky channel. The night of the party was 
cloudy and pitchy dark. It was one among the first foggy 
storms of Autumn. 

History .—Shortly before the festival night, Caroline la¬ 
bored under some slight menstrual irritation; so that when 
the time came, she concluded not to attend. Earlier than 
accustomed, she retired to repose, with her mind full of the 
ideas of the gay friends she had expected to meet, and of 
the scene of the festival. 

Her mother recollected to have heard some noise in her 
chamber about midnight. It was then she rose, passed out 
at her door, and plunged into the dark. She took the nearest 
route; traversed her father’s field in a straight line without 
a path; crossed over the fence ; and fell into the road. Ar¬ 
rived at the stream, she took the detour to the log; passed 
over the flood raging at her feet; continued in the path-way; 
and entered the door of the party, as I have described. When 
light came, the traces of her feet plainly showed the way 
she had travelled. 

Shakspeare has managed somnambulism to prodigious 
effect in Macbeth. Than the one however here given, of all 
the recorded cases now before me, none more precisely dis¬ 
plays the mental phenomena. A scientific history of som¬ 
nambulism, with a good digest of cases, would present medi¬ 
cal humanity alive in the shadowy land; constitute it a 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


407 


separate branch of anthropology; and, in interest and inci¬ 
dent, rival with reality the fancies of Homer, Ossian, Maro, 
Scott—of all the unmerciful freezers of human blood. 

ARTICLE II. 

In Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism. 

What shall we say? Cuvier* * * § admits phenomena in living 
bodies of this sort of attraction. Lobsteinf avows his full 
belief in its existence. Georgetf with others hold it on the 
ground of observation and experiment—an affair of the senses 
—and evolve its laws and operations in the form of absolute 
science. Others of equally brilliant name, in the actual 
epoch, wholly incredulous, denounce it as proud, hateful 
charlatanry, the imposition of designing men upon the cre¬ 
dulity of the weak and illiterate. The faculty of Paris, we 
know,§ among whom our Franklin sat in judgment, after 
laying themselves open to full conviction, and a fair investi¬ 
gation, condemned it as ideal, and a contemptible forgery 
upon mankind. 

We have only room to say—some knowledge of this mag¬ 
netism appears to remount to a great antiquity. It is one of 
those sort of ideas moving in the mind’s extreme ellipse, 
which, after making its aphelion like some of the stars, re¬ 
turns with its glare in the desolations of time to agitate the 
philosophical world. 

As a remedy in rheumatism, paralysis, &c., the magnetic 
fluid was known to Ludwig, Lacondamine, Sigaud de La- 
fond, Glaubrecht, Alien, Paulian, Weber, Stromer.—By 
Paracelsus it was extolled in odontalgia, and other neuroses. 
P. Hehl, astronomical professor at Vienna, explored its the¬ 
rapeutic virtues in other diseases; and communicated his 
observations and discoveries to Mesmer. Desperate for 
immortality, gloomy, ambitious, spiritual like Mahomet, 


* Anatomie Comp, 

t Treat, on the Symp. Nerve, p. 101. 

X De la Phys. du Syst. Nerv., tom. i. p. 267. 

§ Vid. Ency. Britannica—words Mesmer and Mesmerism. 


408 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


but without his love of the sword, Mesmer pushed on in 
the route of investigation, with the chart and compass of the 
Vienna professor in hand. 

Soon he placed the knowledge he had received to good 
account; claimed faultily and unjustly the first principles of 
it in a former publication of his; and at the disapprobation 
and displeasure of Dr. Ingenhouz, besides many others, suc¬ 
ceeded in fixing on his own head, the glory of what he con¬ 
sidered an everlasting discovery. 

According to Mesmer, as developed by his disciple Des- 
long, “Animal magnetisrn is a fluid existing universally 
in nature,” medium of all the celestial attractions; and 
operative, despite of distance, between bodies both mineral 
and organic, and vice versa . 

The existence of this animal, magnetic fluid was de¬ 
nounced by the literati of the age as visionary and un¬ 
founded. Mesmer appeared before the Academy of Sciences 
at Berlin, for the protection of his principles, but they w r ere 
rejected as unworthy of notice. They were no better re¬ 
ceived at Vienna. 

Not to be repulsed from the altar at wdiich he worship¬ 
ped, Mesmer made other efforts. Year 1778, he was joy¬ 
fully welcomed in Paris by the thousands starving there, 
as in all other great capitals, with ennui, w T hose existence, 
to be supportable, must be solaced wdth novelties— ennui , 
which arms with force the genius and pen of romance and 
novel composition, whose products it consumes with insati¬ 
able greediness. Here, amid the loud clamor of flame, his 
system continued to rise wdth augmenting splendor, until 
the French sovereign ordered him to appear before his 
learned men, by whom he was again condemned. The 
report by M. Thouret of the judgment the Royal Society 
of Medicine passed upon him made public, struck dumb the 
host of magnetizers then in Paris; and knocked from their 
unconsecrated hands their most lucrative trade.* 

Still in shape more or less modified, animal magnetism 
lives, and finds favor among some of the great and powerful 

* Deslong had amassed himself more than 100,000. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


409 


in thought. Lobstein, I have mentioned, conceives this 
magnetism properly investigated, might yield its illumina¬ 
tion to physiology, and conduct to new knowledge in the 
science ofliving beings. He does not think, “the existence 
of occult powers,” animal magnetism, “in human nature, 
declared by observation, should be rejected.” In confirma¬ 
tion, he cites the case of a young female communicated to 
him, in which, as to the facts, there could exist no doubt. 
“ Some letters, folded and sealed as they came, were placed 
without her knowledge, upon the scrobiculus cordis , in which 
situation she discovered their contents” while sleeping— 
effect of occult powers. The phenomena of the magnetic 
slumber recorded by authors are every way wonderful. 

Le Docteur Georget mentions similar cases;* and, among 
some, one singular enough. “A lady discovered a worm 
several inches in length, which had penetrated one of her 
viscera; on each side were a number of yellow spots, and a 
streak on the forehead. She made an accurate drawing, 
and requested at her death the copy and the original should 
be compared.” Her autopsy proved the correctness of the 
drawing. 

In Germany, I believe, this magnetic attraction is much 
employed, at least, by some of the practitioners, in the cure 
of disease. We know Hahnemann and his sectateurs highly 
extol its virtues. In the Organon de V art de guerir , basis of 
homoeopathic medicine, the indications and manner of appli¬ 
cation are accurately enough pointed out. The hand is to 
be passed slowly and carefully along the spine, a capite ad 
pedem , pede ad caput , so as to strike the magnetic currents. 

For the successful experimenting upon animal magnet¬ 
ism, Georget, physician to the Hospital Salpetriere just 
cited, lays down carefully all the rules and precautions ne¬ 
cessary to be observed. His operations appear to succeed 
with about the same success as those of a good chemist. 

Under his directions, I caused many trials to be made by 
persons, and on persons of every variety of temperament, 
but not the slightest effect could be produced. Among the 

* In the work quoted above. 


410 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


number submitted to experimentation, the magnetic poles 
ought to have been favorably disposed in some. It may, I 
think, be fairly concluded, the reality people of my country 
cannot be magnetized. I ought, however, to say, the sub¬ 
jects of all these experiments were healthy. Had they been 
worn down by chagrin and the weight of sorrow, I know 
not what the results might have been. 

Under such circumstances, often the imagination appears 
to obey new laws, and operate with more energetic power. 
In the world formed by disease, there is much of our hu¬ 
manity that remains in the first darkness:—There is a host 
of organic and mental phenomena, which admit of no satis¬ 
factory elucidation by any known law; and some even, which 
transcend the flight of all reasonable conjecture. These 
phenomena must appertain to known facts badly interpreted, 
or to occult pow T ers, laws of the organism, which remain yet 
to be explored. Since the nervous system, upon which they 
depend in causation, appears to be subjected to the polar 
form of motion, may not then animal magnetism stir abroad 
visibly in this w 7 orld of disease? and, in the actual state of 
knowledge, may not the phenomena in question, at least 
some of them, have some claim to be magnetic ? 

Upon this view 7 of the subject, it is reasonable, the mind 
must become affected from the morbid magnetic deviations 
of the nervous organ. Persons laboring under such affec¬ 
tions, toward which actual science leans, have, all ages, 
become puzzles to their acquaintances; and some, stumbling- 
blocks to the world. The somnambulistic visions —visions 
of the magnetic slumber , as I may say, then, of the honorable 
E. Swedenborg, well known to the public, have, at once, 
amused and astonished mankind. In his voluminous w T orks 
on Heaven, Hell, and Science of the angels, he feels himself 
actually present in all he hears, converses, sees, and describes. 
No philosopher ought to doubt his sincerity.* In our reflec- 

* His Regnum Minerale , among his early writings, bears no traces of 
this sort of delusion, and was an acceptable present to the universities. Dr. 
Hartley, in his Treat, on Man, bestows on him the praise of the greatest 
learning and abilities. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


411 


tions presently upon all these anomalous sensations, I shall 
mention some phenomena in animals resembling the mag¬ 
netic, if magnetic they really be. 

ARTICLE III. 

In chronic encephalitis. 

Since the encephalon is the laboring instrument, the mind 
must feel promptly its diseases. This organ attacked by 
moderate inflammation, the mind lavishes its strength; burns 
as in a hot Are. Life wasting under its slow phlegmasia, 
the mental phenomena become dyed deep with many differ¬ 
ent shades, which distinguish them. Sometimes the general 
sensibility and acuteness of sensation are exalted to excite 
wonder; and the mind everywhere is pushed out beyond 
its normal action into the border of insanity. From this 
phlegmasia favorably disposed, history records some instances, 
in which geometricians have solved problems, poets have 
drank inspiration, and reached fame, which they could not 
without. Under such circumstances, it widens and deepens 
the sea of the mind; and rolls the maddened billows of 
thought ashore flashing light and fire. Sometimes the 
mind’s sensations and ideas lose all their coaptations with 
things, and the mind plunges black insanity. And some¬ 
times, this inflammation appears to effect a revolution in the 
order of the brain’s polar or magnetic action, and the mind 
falls into the visions of somnambulism, and perceives with 
new senses what is both visible and invisible in any other con¬ 
dition of the organ. I will give an example of this phleg¬ 
masia, in which many of these phenomena were manifested. 

Mrs. D., wasting from it in the flower of her life, one day 
remarked—“ Can a person live in two worlds at the same 
time? My sensations are so peculiar, they mock all I have 
learned from past experience. They belong to the objects of 
the world to which I go. I have been thinking over all the 
works I’ve read on the formation of language, to see if I 
could find any form of words, which would express them; 
but none will answer. They are unutterable; I appear 


412 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


instantaneously to pass from one state of existence to the 
other. I always know which I am in by the form of my 
thoughts. And, too, my sensations of late have become so 
exquisite. As I see things, I hear sounds no mortal ever 
heard. I am mortal only by fits and starts; my mortal and 
immortal give place to each other; my being staggers to its 
change amid sounds. The world, in the stillest moments, is 
full of sounds of matter, of eternity.—0! could you hear as 
I do the music of heaven, and the utterance of distinct praise 
—see under yon snowy roof as I, the crowns reserved for 
the faithful in Christ, whose splendors fall on me— 

“Till recently I never had the use of my senses; and yet 
often they are not my proper senses—but I see with both. 
My senses which belong here have become troublesome. 
I cannot even sustain the flies passing over my bed, and 
lighting on the curtains; the thunder and roaring of their 
wings distract me.” Saying herself the thing was incre¬ 
dible, she submitted with a smile to have her head covered 
up for experiment. Some few were forced near her bed, 
and occasionally one passed over. In this situation, she 
would announce their approach, and the direction of their 
flight—could tell, she said, “by the flapping of their wings.” 

Shortly after, she frequently heard the angels calling 
her; saw them in her chamber, and, in the manner of Tasso, 
held conversations with them. These conversations w^ere 
perfectly rational in every thing, except the supposed pre¬ 
sence. When they delayed their coming too long, she 
would go to the window, and call them the most w r ooingly. 
Soon her brain crushed, and her mind suspended its action, 
some time before the breath left her. 

ARTICLE IV. 

In apparitions. 

From apparere to appear. As phenomena of the mind, 
they must enjoy existence. Mr. D., a prudent man, in the 
afternoon of a beautiful autumnal day, was passing near an 
aged cedar which stood alone in the field. Suddenly under 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


413 


the shade, he discovered a human figure standing upright 
in the sepulchral dress. The visage was that of his wife 
he had lost many years since. He looked intently upon it, 
but it disappeared on his approach. 

The story of the ghost of Sir George Yilliers, mentioned 
by Clarendon, often cited, appearing about midnight to the 
officer at Windsor Castle, urging him to go to his son, the 
Duke of Buckingham, and forewarn him of his approaching 
assassination, is well known. 

Quite recently, Dr. Brewster has made known in a work 
many cases of ghosts perceived by the different senses, and 
it is said, Dr. Hibbert, in his Philosophy of Apparitions, has 
done much to explain their nature. 

REFLECTION I. 

On the mental phenomena of Somnambulism. 

The subject of this affection recorded at page 404, at the 
age when her sex exercises the most charming dominion, 
lived but to be happy — was gay, beautiful as the wild 
flow 7 ers and poplars of the hills of the author’s native land, 
where she drew the first breath; and her mind clear as the 
living waters of the Saluda, in which she loved to watch 
the sun go down in a bath of foaming, sparkling gold. She 
was without any predisposition to mental affections. 

The history and circumstances of her case show—she rose 
from her slumbers; travelled through the darkness of a 
night, in which the power of all natural vision had been 
useless; made the dangerous pass of the log over the water; 
walked amid precipices and dangers; and without her know¬ 
ledge and consent, went to the party.—Nay, achieved what 
she never could have allowed. 

What is the nature of the perceptive force, by which she 
was conducted? for we must admit in her a directing power 
of intelligence operative by sensation, or she could not have 
taken a definite direction. It was not the path, which guided 
her footsteps, since there was none through the field, and 
since there was a choice made of the manner of crossing the 


35 


414 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


water. She clambered over the fence, made the only pas¬ 
sage of the water then practicable. On her solitary journey, 
accordingly, she was sustained in proper relation with ex¬ 
ternal objects, which alone could be due to the continued 
exercise of external sensations—the sensations of somnam¬ 
bulism. The sense of touch only could be suspected of 
having exercised any directing agency in the case. But 
observation has shown, that such subjects are perfectly 
unconscious of all external impressions; even a lighted torch 
held under the nose without burning has failed to wake 
them. The ordinary senses, therefore, do not direct the 
somnambulistic wanderer, since the mind remains in a state 
of absolute unconsciousness on their impressions. 

Upon this state even often depends the only safety of the 
sufferer. Had our fair somnambule but woke the least, when 
her slippery feet were pressing the log, the loss of her life 
had been inevitable. Of all the mind’s acts, its volition and 
judgment only appear here to occupy their proper place. 

From the facts, it is therefore certain, the mind perceives 
and judges correctly of external objects in somnambulism, 
but not by the common senses or ordinary provisions of the 
organism. That the mind by any development or exaltation 
of innate power, can perceive directly or without organic in¬ 
tervention, is unphilosophical, untenable. Nay, since the 
body is to be renovated , there is no reason to think it will 
ever reach a state of perfect independence, but that its ac¬ 
tivity, through infinite duration, will be defined by organs. 

We must, then, I think, conclude, there exists in somnam¬ 
bulism, and perhaps some other affections, a peculiar rela¬ 
tion between the mind and the five senses, in which, at least, 
their concentric action is completely suspended, and organs 
not ordinarily senses permitted to supply their functions. 

Analogously in some respects, we see all the tissues of or¬ 
ganic life perform their various acts, and never transmit to 
the common sensory a solitary impression to stimulate the 
mind’s activity. But the moment disease comes, through 
their altered relations, each becomes a sense, to which the 
mind responds by perception. This perception ceases at 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


415 


the moment of recovery, as does the somnambulistic percep¬ 
tion on arousing the person. 

In sympathetic or magnetic somnambulism, Prof. Lob- 
stein and others are convinced, “ the ganglioso-abdominal 
centre is forced into a new and altered sphere of action 
which enables it apparently to perform the functions of the 
cerebrum.” Buffon, Lacaze, laid great stress on this centre 
by making it the seat of the pathetic movements. Bichat 
has immortalized it, and laid the groundwork of ingenious 
conjectures for yet ages. The twilight of great philosophers 
misleads afterwards. A thousand observations establish the 
brain the immediate condition of the mental phenomena. 
Why, then, make the abdominal centre a separate seat of the 
mind ? no advantage can be gained, and the order of phe¬ 
nomena does not demand it. 

In the case before us, the features were not natural, but per¬ 
manently fixed as marble, giving to the countenance a strange 
and peculiar look; the color of indescribable whiteness, and 
the touch of icy coldness. The features were unmeaning 
—the soul had deserted them to articulate through other 
organs. The skin was pale and cold—there were great ful¬ 
ness of the arterial trunks, sanguineous plethora of the brain, 
of all the abdominal viscera; and the plastic molecular move¬ 
ment or life was exalted in them in proportion to the depres¬ 
sion elsewhere. The skin was icy cold to the touch.—The 
experiments and observations of Brodie, Chossart, Despretz, 
and Dulong, have put beyond all doubt, that respiration has 
a share in the production of animal heat; and that this heat 
greatly and essentially depends upon the act of innervation. 
There was then too great a deficiency of the nervous energy 
in the whole surface of the body. 

A definite portion of this energy distributed to the organs, 
constitutes the basis of all the functions with which they are 
charged. If any one receive more or less than the due pro¬ 
portion, it can no longer respond in the natural order to the 
general movement of the whole. May then the withdrawal, 
of the nervous energy to an excessive degree from the sur¬ 
face of the body and external senses, isolate them from the 


416 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATION^. 


encephalic focus, and, consequently, cut off the mind’s inter¬ 
course? May this same energy generated now more abund¬ 
antly from the increased quantity ot arterial blood supplied 
to the nervous pulp, radiated, concentrated in the internal 
organs, escape in constant explosions by some of the nerves 
leading to the external surface? And may the new force 
thus imparted to these nerves, capacitate them to receive and 
transmit impressions from external objects to the cerebrum, 
and establish new channels of communication between the 
mind and these objects ? 

All the extremities of the nerves which commonly trans¬ 
mit impressions from without, are expanded in the seats of 
the senses to receive the stimulations of bodies; and, to this 
circumstance, I have shown, all our knowledge of external 
nature is due. Do these nerves, which perceive in somnam¬ 
bulism, and regulate locomotion, receive these stimulations 
alone by virtue of the great centralization, concentration of 
the nervous energy in them? And may any nerve termi¬ 
nating externally thus actuated, become a sense, and are 
those of the ordinary senses papillified simply to help out 
their capacity for receiving material excitements, at the 
ordinary rates of normal innervation? Or may the external 
extremity of any nerve not papillified, through the power 
alone of excessive innervation, receive the pictorial represen¬ 
tation of objects, and awake the mind’s consciousness? 

None of these questions will probably ever admit a positive 
answer. Yet we may be pretty certain, in all somnambulism, 
a great change takes place in the distribution of the nervous 
agent. In this change, all the external senses appear to be 
paralyzed; or the reciprocal union and activity between them 
and the cerebrum suspended; and the mind looks out on 
the surrounding scene, and feels nature through unaccus¬ 
tomed channels, in a way that makes humanity shudder at 
humanity. 

The experiments and observations of philosophers now so 
often invoked, establish most incontestably the polarity of 
the motion of the nerves, which is inductively the motion of 
an imponderable substance elaborated by the cerebrum. Too 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


417 


little is known of this substance, as of the imponderable at¬ 
tractions generally, to identify its polarity with magnetism, 
electricity, galvanism, the force of chemical affinity, or of 
gravitation. Its manner of motion is the same as these, or 
in two opposite directions; and, when I speak of it as mag¬ 
netic, I mean simply as to the manner of action. 

All the phenomena of this case now cited, arrayed in dis¬ 
cussion, evince a loss of equilibrium of innervation between 
the internal and external parts of the organism; or, accord¬ 
ingly to the restrictions just given, the central nervous 
organ has magnetically deviated in relation to the external 
senses, and periphery of the body, and become nosological 
in function. In this deviation not profoundable consists 
somnambulism. Or this deviation is neatly the organic state, 
which answers to this affection—is the essential change in the 
state of the organs, which answers to the change in the state 
of the mind which is somnambulism, the one always imply¬ 
ing the other. In this inquiry I pretend not to penetrate 
the mind itself, immechanical, indivisible. I contemplate 
somnambulism only as an affair of the organism, beyond 
which, beyond truth. 

The blind walking feel their way; the somnambule ad¬ 
vances freely and boldly along. The sense of vision or a 
sort of preception analogous, appears to constitute the con¬ 
ducting power. If any other sense be active, it must be 
feebly so, since small objects are suffered to w T ound the feet 
and other parts of the body. And those wdio invoke the 
stupefaction of this affection by magnetizing for surgical 
opportunity, assure us, the patient is conscious of no pain 
in the most capital operations. 

In the case reported by Prof. Lobstein, as in all such cases, 
vision did not appear to extend beyond the surface of the 
body, for, it will be remembered, the letters were not read 
until placed on the scTobiculus covdis . But in the example 
we here consider, distant objects must have been visible. 
Are there then many shades in somnambulism; does the 
sight become more extended in proportion to the centraliza¬ 
tion of the nervous agent, or abnormal modification of the 

35* 


418 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


polar action of the moral organ? And in this way, may 
vision be extended much beyond - natural, nay, to limits 
almost infinite. There are some phenomena of animal psy¬ 
chology, which make the existence of such extraordinary 
vision suspected, as employed by nature to help out her 
conservative economy. 

However distant, whatever obstacles oppose the view, it 
is known the honey-bee flies in a rectilinear direction to the 
hive. To the joy of the traveller in the pathless wilderness, 
lost and fearing death, his horse unrestrained finds his way 
unerringly through the gloom of night to some distant place, 
where he has been fed. The young of the water Testacea 
hatched out on land, reach the ancestral stream by the nearest 
practicable route, whence their parent emigrated to give 
them life. Some mules, a few years since, taken near the 
Cape of Good Hope on an English home-bound ship, in great 
distress of weather, were thrown into the sea off the Western 
Coast of Africa. Several tongues of land projected out to ward 
where the ship then stood, about 20 miles distant. Three 
of these mules, according to account, swam to the nearest 
tongue, during this Stygian, disastrous night. The little 
snow-birds emigrating, fly from the western shores of Scot¬ 
land through the deep expanse, where no object points the 
way, to the American shores in 72 hours.* The colossal 
cranes, which frequent paludal Georgia and Florida in the 
winter, spend their summers in the marshy grounds at the 
foot of the Eagle Hills, seen there by Capt. Pike, on his 
journey by land to the Pacific Ocean. There, in the boreal 
hemisphere, they pass the season of love and fecundity, and 
afterwards fly with their young to the sunny, food-bearing 
plains of these countries, the distance more than one-fourth 
of the earth’s ambit, thus making all the rays of the sun 
their own. A gentleman in Canton about going abroad, shut 
up his dog. The animal afterwards escaped, and came up 

* Dr. Fleming, Philosophy of Zoology , stales, “ many of these little 
creatures about to emigrate were caught in Scotland, and the hour and day 
of the month marked on them.” Several were taken about Boston and else¬ 
where in three days afterwards. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


419 


with his master, after the hundreds of thousands who throng 

o 

those streets, had trod in the same footsteps. 

How could the system of Descartes, of Locke—the system 
that founds all in sensation—make out the psychology of 
such facts as I have now cited ? There must be ideas which 
have other origin than ordinary sensation; and senses in liv-* 
ing beings, not generally admitted by philosophers. And 
since it is manifest, the mind modifies by age, sickness, 
health—all organic vicissitudes—that any change in the 
mind implies a corresponding change in the organism, and 
vice versa , we should seek in organic causes, in those of the 
encephalon especially—the immediate actuating instrument 
—the reason and explanation of these curious and interesting 
phenomena. The power, which conducts in the emigration 
of birds from one hemisphere to another—conducts in the 
cases I have cited, assuming them all to be true—cannot be 
the unerring power which guides the planet in its flight, 
can appertain to no law, property of materiality. It is the 
power of intelligence imparted to animate beings equally 
unerring, and, in emergency or otherwise, placed under their 
control. 

The conducting power of intelligence in all these cases, 
except the last, which probably does not differ, is that of 
vision or a mode of sensation similar. The phenomena claim 
for it, necessarily make it so. Can animals, then, by volition 
effect a change in the magnetic state of their nervous organs; 
induce spontaneous somnambulism, or a condition analogous, 
and look out with peculiar polar sight on things otherwise 
infinitely invisible by distance, and the depths of space— 
nay, bring the universe into their presence, and subject it to 
their inspection ? What more angels, who may fly beyond 
the beams of the stars into provinces of the Omnipotent, not 
come to us to think of? 

With this omniscient sight, about to emigrate, do these 
little birds of Scotland, of less than ounce weight, through 
day and the gloom of night, as the mariner on his compass, 
gaze steadily on the American shores, hid far beneath the 
earth’s convexity, and thus direct their flight? By this 



420 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


sight of all-foreseeing nature, does the horse in the wilder¬ 
ness hungry, eye returning his distant feeding-place in the 
valley beyond the mountains—the young Testacea see the 
water before them they are to approach—the bee wandering 
and gathering honey, the hive—and did the stupid mules 
buried and forsaken in the starless waves to perish, behold 
the nearest point of the African land, make it their choice, 
and shape their course seeing? Could these insects, birds, 
these mules little more in make than Balaam’s ass, but 
speak, human philosophy would rejoice to listen. 

The operative existence of such vision in animals is de¬ 
clared most absolutely by the facts; doubt only can rest in 
the explanation. The reason must exist in the encephalon 
in relation to the mind, or in the encephalo-pneumatic con¬ 
nection, or the facts themselves and much of w’hat is re¬ 
garded as the instincts of animals, are true prodigies or 
miracles, the causes divine, and unsearchable. But the 
facts are physical, the causes are permanent, and, therefore, 
physical. The vision, consequently, is dependent upon 
some peculiar state of the sensitive system—this state, a 
deviation from that of common vision—the cause of the 
deviation, polarity, demonstrably operative, at least to some 
extent, in all ordinary sensation, and the voluntary move¬ 
ments. If the cause be not as I describe, it inevitably de¬ 
pends upon the altered action of molecular nutritive affinity, 
offering change to the cerebral structure, which, from the 
instantaneousness of this vision evidenced in the bee ccoingf 
to the hive, the mules plunged in the water, &c., cannot 
possibly be. This change demands time, but polar varia¬ 
tion is instantaneous, which comports with the phenomena. 

The conducting property of this polar vision , as X may 
then call it, does not operate by the definitions objects give 
to space. It resides wholly in the creatures’ mind, inde¬ 
pendently of all external locality, as I have ascertained 
from actual observation. 

Often I have enjoyed the opportunity of observing the 
emigrating cranes. Their wings tire on the steady flight. 
At the distance of some leagues, they regularly fly round in 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


42 L 

a circle, but always resume their onward way in a straight 
line with the one they had finished; so that their course 
through the atmosphere would be represented by a straight 
line, with circles touching it, at pretty regular intervals. 

If they were guided by the position of terrestrial objects 
they see, they would not resume the onward flight in a 
straight line with the one they had finished. And, too, the 
direction of their course in the darkest night, when the earth 
is obscured from their eyes, is the same as in open day, not 
less true and perfect. In another hemisphere far distant, 
they gaze steadily through the earth’s convexity on the 
nuptial land, the land of their love and tender cares to 
which they go; or on the plains of our Georgia and Florida, 
white with the solar flame fecundating food. Their hearts 
full of gladness, they fly high in the vault of heaven. In 
the still and lonely night, the joy of the loud, shrill song of 
their march falls on the countries over which they pass, 
stirs the dead dull ear of sleep, and they dream of seeing 
angels, and enjoying the divine melody of Heaven. 

The sublime effects of this vision cover in the shade the 
proudest exploits of human genius. Its possessor, through, 
it, wields science, whose course is infinitely above that of 
man’s—offspring of his sickly sensations, slow in action, 
often wrong, groveling, creeping in the dust. Could he 
manage this vision, soon he would do more than pile Ossa 
on Mount Pelion—thrust his head above his being’s make 
without reverence. 

More than twenty huge centuries passed between the first 
of the Phoenicean navigators, and those who began to sail 
with the compass. During this long and tedious interval, 
man continued to make observations, and put the specks of 
thought together, which finally perfected navigation. Error 
kept pace with truth, which required the consumption of 
much labor to lop off. The separate ideas had often to be 
torn asunder, and put together again, before the perfect form 
was obtained—before man navigating in the dark, in the 
light, could tell to what shore he was tending. 

The force of intelligence in one of the little Scottish birds 


422 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


I have mentioned, its brain a pennyweight, despising the 
rust and the smoke of time, in a few short days after incu¬ 
bation, accomplishes more perfectly the same thing. Poised 
on its little win^s, it mounts into the blue of the stars. Its 
brain, as a mirror, reflects visibly to it, the country of emi¬ 
gration on the other side of the world—is a living mariner’s 
compass, by which it sees its course, and soars unerringly 
to its destination. And, in the fervid action of volition on 
its pinions, it commands a power of motion, which outspeeds 
far all human boasted engines impelled by fire—engines 
which are maddening the movement of actual civilization. 

What shall I say! the rays of the Eternal Reason have 
fallen on all creatures, of which they make a different use 
according to the model of their being, from the angel, who 
is higher to the insect which is only lower. 

Although these emigrating birds do not direct their course 
over sea and land by the observation of celestial or terrestrial 
objects, they, nevertheless, at the same time, besides the 
polar somnambulistic , enjoy the sense of common vision, and 
are alive to external excitements as is evidenced by their 
acts. 

A gentleman worthy of confidence relates—“ Some years 
since, he wounded a goose in an emigrating flock, which 
brought her to the ground. She remained about his yard 
for a long season; and became very tame, and docible. In 
process of time, the music of her species again fell on her 
ear from a flock passing. As the strains grew louder and 
louder, she ran about the yard a few moments in much agi¬ 
tation, then mounted into the clouds, and flew off in the 
train. During the emigrating season, some years after, he 
observed a company of these birds on the approach. A 
portion split off from the main body, and lit in the yard, 
which proved to be the tame one with her young, which 
had left him.” 

If this be true, they judge of localities, but must direct 
their flight by polar sight. They are sensible of danger, 
enjoy all their common conservative senses together with 
that by which they direct their course. 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


423 


The polar or somnambulistic sense of animals, therefore, 
under the power of volition, differs in circumstances from 
that of our species, which is always the effect of disease, and 
quiets every other sense, while it continues. 

Compensating animals with this sense to help out conser¬ 
vation, nature has enabled them by it, as we have seen, to 
rival, nay, infinitely surpass, in some respects, the exploits, 
achievements of reason in us—reason, which needs so much 
training, colleging, to be placed to good account. It is to 
this sense supplying in them the place of the profoundest 
science, we may conceive, are due their admirable works of 
art, which, as I have already said, have stimulated geometry, 
and offered to human reason the most profound suggestions 
of invention:—works, which have been equally perfect in 
all annals; and which have characterized the active life of 
each species through the flights of all their ages, with the 
same fidelity, with which the laws of their separate organo¬ 
geny, have preserved their generations’ models.—Everlasting 
demonstration, and memorial of the action of Divine Provi¬ 
dence on the world!—Sense which has been seized upon by 
man in the east, and subjected to his service in the pigeons, 
which, according to Staunton,* and others, convey the man¬ 
dates of haughty monarchs throughout extensive empires 
in the space of a few short hours—sense, when the world 
was a shoreless water, that descried on the abyss the “olive 
branch,” which called forth hymns of joy, and grateful 
hosannas. 

But after all nature’s pains, brutes, if I dare call that 
brute whose acts I have been describing, constantly perish, 
where a particle of our reason would make them live, and 
we sometimes perish with our reason, where a particle of 
their sense would secure life. A ship, some years since, 
stranded on one of the West India shores in a hurricane, 
and lost her whole crew in a few feet of safety. A few 
rays of light had saved them. These pains leave room 
everywhere for death. 

The polar sense of perception presents external objects as 

* Embassy to China. 


424 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


they really are, or it could not so successively conduct man, 
the subject of it, over precipices, and amid dangers unhurt; 
emigrating fishes through the floods to distant shores, birds, 
&c. It differs, therefore, precisely from the sense of disces- 
thesia , or of the hallucinations of the deranged, the maniacal. 

But this polar perception in man must admit of modifica¬ 
tions, for, in somnambulism, or sort of phenomena constitut¬ 
ing it, as I have noticed already, there appear to be many 
shades. Besides the one in which the body participates in 
the movement, there is another which manifests itself to be 
purely mental. In this species, the ideas already in the 
mind from ordinary sensation or imagination, are presented 
clothed with external forms and existence, giving rise, as I 
may say, to a strange wandering or walking of thought. 
The “snow-white camels,’’seen by Mahomet, “with pinions 
of flaming gold, on which the pious sainted spirits of Islam- 
ism are borne above, to be introduced into the joyful pre¬ 
sence of the long, black-haired girls of Paradise:”—“the 
flaming,” “pale,” “red-rosy sun of Heaven,” the flowers 
growing in the gardens, and about the habitations of the 
angels, presenting, in the natural arrangement of their colors, 
living rainbows, and other figures evidenced to the senses 
of Swedenborg, are phenomena of this sort. 

Mahomet and Swedenborg, therefore, were the subjects 
of this ideal species of somnambulism. Persons thus affected 
meet their own ideas out abroad, never recognize, but look 
upon them as they do upon the substantial forms of nature, 
and feel the same consciousness of their independent, external 
reality. 

In his fanciful conception of Don Quixote, Cervantes 
has worked up this ideal somnambulism, or transubstantia- 
tion of ideas, into a form, which must excite the merriment 
—the loud, convulsive laughter of yet distant posterity. 
The monks of Mount Athos, mentioned in the ecclesiastic 
history of the fourth century, are other notable examples of 
it. There is a peculiar sort of meditationists in India, 
noticed in the voyages of Bernier, in a letter to Chape lain 
on “ the Superstition of the Oentiles,” who procure this 


PATHOLOGICAL SENSATIONS. 


425 


affection by persevering starvation. They pass their time 
in the dark shady retreats of their gardens remote from 
cities and society, and enjoy the person of the Divinity in 
an exceedingly bright, white, inexplicable flame of fire. I 
will make here one general remark.—May it not be here¬ 
after discovered, that many of the forms of insanity, are 
directly dependent upon the polar habitudes of the brain, as 
well as upon its nutritive deviations or structural degene- 
rescence ? 

Constant and intense meditation long protracted, isolates 
completely the mind’s consciousness from all external im¬ 
pressions. The state of the encephalon induced by this 
action of the mind, gives origin to another form of this affec¬ 
tion, which is also ideal. The Improvisitorists , the Illumi¬ 
nated, the Contemplationists of Persia, Italy, are specimens. 
The great thinkers of all nations have furnished some exam¬ 
ples. Cardan, Yarignon, Newton, Thomas, Mendelsohn, 
Boerhaave, were subject to it. In his “ Experience in 
Physic,” Zimmerman has recorded the names of others. 
St. Augustine mentions an ecclesiastic who could bring on 
the affection at pleasure, and, for his opinions, suffered the 
most cruel tortures without the least sign of pain. Did the 
South American Indians, under the exterminating sword of 
Cortes and Pizarro, possess the art of procuring this affec¬ 
tion, which enabled them to suffer all the torments and 
deaths Spanish ingenuity could devise, without betraying 
the least weakness or sense of pain ? 

The perceptions of the various species of ideal somnam¬ 
bulism now cited, differ precisely from those of fancy. The 
images of Homer, Ossian, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, are 
formed upon the code of physical laws. They admit nothing 
existable , but what comports with this code. Their crea¬ 
tions are the affair of reason, not of their own sense and con¬ 
sciousness, which constitutes neatly the difference. I will 
close this long, I fear, tedious reflection, with an observation 
on the directing sense of the somnambulism, in which the 
body participates—every way marvellous and unprofound- 
able. 


36 


426 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


The condition of all distinct, natural vision is, that the 
rays of light coming from any object, must subtend a defi¬ 
nite angle in the eye. There can be no subtension or angles 
in the nervous extremities we suppose to act as visual organs. 
The appearance of the same object is greater or less, in pro¬ 
portion to the acuteness or obtuseness, size of the angle, the 
visual rays will subtend, which is regulated by the distance. 
Thus the sun, though so much more voluminous than the 
moon, from his greater distance, subtends about the same 
angle, and appears of the same size. Accordingly all ob¬ 
jects, however different their magnitudes, will appear of 
the same dimensions, if seen under the same angle. And 
if they be removed beyond the point at which angular sub¬ 
tension can take place, they become invisible. 

The laws, therefore, of light or of natural vision, every 
way define, and limit its operations, while the vision of this 
somnambulism operates in the blackness of night, as in the 
brightness of meridian light, and shows itself to be perfectly 
independent of all these laws. Persons reading sealed let¬ 
ters ; roving in the dark amid perils unhurt; the passage of 
birds and fishes in a straight line to distant shores and 
places, attest this independence. Is it to this freedom from 
the restraints of natural vision, are due the perfectness and 
boundlessness of the view of the human and animal somnam- 
bule? 

But to suppose the organic sense of any creature can 
stimulate or actuate itself, is unphilosophic. The cause of 
this, as of natural vision, then, is external stimulation. Be¬ 
sides light, what exists universally in nature, that can stimu¬ 
late, but the force which co-ordinates our stars with those of 
all others, into one movement?—force, which radiates the 
abyss of space from all bodies, and stands everywhere in 
polar equipoise—force, which so stimulating , must show the 
universe, it pervades, encircles, and holds to its place. 


APPARITIONS—HOW CAUSED. 


427 


REFLECTION II. 

On Ghosts or Apparitions — Phantasmogeny. 

Some of these phenomena, at least, I think, must be 
regarded as the effects of the ideal somnambulism just 
described. 

If we suppose any ideas exercising a lively influence on 
the mind, can provoke it to react on the intracranial focus, 
as it does in all ordinary sensation, the senses must become 
affected in the same manner they would be, if the objects 
were really present, to w r hich the ideas correspond. I have 
shown already, that the senses are always affected by the 
mind’s perceptive act; or that the mind’s eccentric reaction 
returns to the sense or senses impressed, which is implied 
by, “ I see with my eyes,” &c., and that, if the reaction does 
not return, there is no consciousness or perception. 

If, then, ideas lively affecting the mind, can cause the 
transmission of its movement through the intracranial focus 
to the senses, as in all ordinary sensation, the objects, wdiich 
these ideas represent, must appear to the mind as really ex¬ 
ternal, as if they w r ere actually present and impressing the 
senses. That ideas of themselves occasionally can thus 
bring about the condition of the organism, upon which their 
primary perception depended, I suppose possible, and from 
facts, probable. 

Accordingly there are ghosts or illusions for all the senses. 
Those of sight the most freezing, have made the greatest 
fio-ure in the world. Dr. Brewster mentions the case of a 

D 

lady, who, at several times, heard illusorily her husband 
calling, and rapping at the door. Another was much an¬ 
noyed by a phantom cat, which would appear close to her. 
In the Diary of a Physician, we all remember the story of 
the spectral dog. The “ frozen hands” of airy phantoms 
have been felt. The senses of taste and smell must have 
their apparitions, but the sort of objects they perceive, can 
never awake much terror to give them celebrity. 

The physiological difference between the apprehension of 


428 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


real and spectral objects, may thus be neatly precised. 1. 
The real object stimulates the sense by which it is percepti¬ 
ble. The corresponding nerve conducts the stimulation to 
the common sensory. If the mind now be affected by the 
stimulation offered, there will ensue consciousness of the 
object through the mind’s eccentric reaction on the perceiv¬ 
ing sense. In this case the stimulation begins in one of the 
senses, and recognizes for cause something external. 

2. The idea of an object thus perceived becomes associ¬ 
ated with a series of others, in some one of which, the mind 
feels a deep and lively interest. The mind, through the 
vividness of its conception of this former sensation, now an 
idea, or one of its compeers, excites the intracranial focus, 
the same as when it first perceived it; the excitement of this 
focus is reflected to the external sense in relation; all the 
physiological conditions of external perception are thus ful¬ 
filled ; and the phantom object appears in outward reality. 
In this case the stimulation begins in the mind—some idea, 
the cause. 

In illustration—the health of Mr. A-declined. Short¬ 

ly before his death, his apparition in the winding sheet, ap¬ 
peared to his lady, musing and promenading in the favorite 
family retreat. She predicted his death to her friends with 
convulsive sorrow. 

Julius Csesar, with his army, after the long wars, in which 
he had been engaged for the interest and glory of his coun¬ 
try, pitched his camp on the banks of the Rubicon. The 
Senate had purposely decreed—“ who passed this stream 
with an army, should be considered as an enemy to Rome.” 
Profoundly meditating upon this decree and the future 
Fates, Csesar passed the night roving up and down the 
margin of these forbidden waters. Anxious and perturbed, 
he was waiting for the gods to speak. Just before the dawn, 
meteoric spectres flashed down upon his vision, from the 
cloudless vault of night. 

The cause, however, of such phenomena, is not always 
an annoying idea. There appear to be reciprocal states of 
the cerebrum and the mind, which are favorable or predis- 



APPARITIONS—HOW CAUSED. 


429 


posed. Irritation, temperament, cast of sensibility, tempo¬ 
rary polar excitements of the brain, may have their influ¬ 
ence ; the spectre appears to present itself spontaneously, as 
in the case cited of Mr. D., but I apprehend, always by the 
same mechanism —eccentric movement of normal sensation. 

Indeed, I know not the reason, why the conception of all 
ideas that relate to external objects, does not always and 
invariably present these objects spectrally;—in other words, 
why the conception of such ideas, like the perception of 
them, does not invariably break the equilibrium of the cere¬ 
bral focus, and thereby modify the sense or senses in rela¬ 
tion. Like the valves of the heart, which prevent the 
regurgitation of the blood, we may suppose some of the 
structures of the brain, whose uses are unknown, prevent 
the eccentric reaction of sensation, and thereby the mind is 
enabled to meditate upon its ideas without being disturbed 
spectrally, or by the presence of the objects they represent. 

If this eccentric reaction was not barred, and a human 
being could be translated to a spiritual state, in the mind’s 
meditations, it would still behold all the forms of nature the 
same, and feel the reality by the senses. The reality would 
be wholly in the mind; all external, an empty show, the 
visible, perceptible world, a shadow. Those philosophers 
who regard such a state of things as this, as the true or ac¬ 
tual state of nature, ought to look upon apparitions as hav¬ 
ing, and the only objects which have a real, external, veri¬ 
table existence. Since the mind’s perceptions with them 
only enjoy a real existence, are effects without mechanical 
causes, such a state of humanity and the world, as they re¬ 
present, do not comport with the manifest plans of Divine 
Providence, whose works evidence an eternal progressive 
motion of cause and effect. 

The senses always affected in perception, are quiet in 
conception; or in the return of ideas to the mind, except in 
the rare instances of apparitions. I think we must admit, 
as intimated, a structural contrivance in the cerebrum, 
whose special function bars up the access to the senses; and 
bestows on the mind the privilege of reflecting upon its ideas, 

36* 


430 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


in the absence of the external objects the prototypes, or with¬ 
out having them so engaged, to intrude upon its presence in 
bodily shape. Spectral apprehensions, therefore, dependent 
upon the abnormal function of this structure or organ in the 
cerebrum which regulates the mind’s action in relation to 
the senses, are morbid phenomena. Superstition in the 
world, they are shades in the mind out of the natural order, 
which strike it with terror. 


SECTION VI. 

CONCLUSION 

Upon this chapter on the sensations . 

The apparition, the somnambule, the raving maniac, differ 
not more from common humanity than minds appear as 
seen by minds. In the immensity of the disproportions 
observable in them, their variations in quantity, force, quality 
are so great, as to have but little in common to mark the 
identity; so that u common sense” is a mere approximation 
of differences. The usages, manners, institutions, religions, 
superstitions of nations, are enigmas to one another; objects 
of mutual disgust, hatred, ridicule, and burlesque, as are the 
peculiar opinions, dogmas of individuals in society. What 
was the height of glory and ambition of one age, another 
looks upon as low, worthless, trifling, contemptible. Man 
shows to man in the light of folly and madness, whether 
presented in the revolutions of time, or in his own generation. 
His politeness is mainly the sacrifice of feeling and opinion 
for peace, and the conciliation of good will—a prodigious, 
energetic force in the mechanics of human nature. Some 
few, however, born alike, see with the same eyes, and form 
an exception. 

This difference is still more striking in man, looking at 
man across the gulf formed by letters. The sublime propo¬ 
sitions uttered in the porch of Zeno, the Lycea, and gardens 
of the philosophers and academics, were strange and won¬ 
derful to the vulgar Greeks, as the ravings of madness. They 


CONCLUSION ON THE SENSATIONS. 


431 


trembled when they heard that Lucian* had exposed to 
laughter and merriment the amours and follies of the popular 
gods, whom they held in the greatest awe and veneration. 
The illiterate Romans feared the vengeance of the thunder¬ 
bolts for Tully, who conversed familiarly about the acts and 
life of Jupiter,f and derived his name from juvandum , help¬ 
ing. They took up Numa out of the grave to recover some 
writings supposed to be unfavorable to the actual worship. 

You tell the honest simple, that Newton and La Place 
knew the size and weight of the stars—the earth revolves— 
that the precise weight of the atmosphere has been ascer¬ 
tained by the vacuum of Toricelli—he does not see it so. 
To him you are wild, deluded. When the British philoso¬ 
pher related to the Islander under the equator, that in some 
seasons, water would become hard and solid in London, 
he boldly pronounced him a liar. When Roger Bacon set 
his clepsydra in motion, they pronounced him worthy of 
death, saying, “he had been taught by Satan.” 

The senses of man operate only on a given area of the 
universe. They operate as we have seen imperfectly; their 
actions are the resources of his intelligence. His mind 
launched out in the open space of nature, shows nothing. 
On the one side extends eternal duration; the events, his¬ 
tory, philosophy unknown ; on the other, the same duration, 
extends ah unwritten page. What is his world? a scale 
in which good and evil press with equal weight, but in 
which the universal Divine Benevolence has manifestly 
operated conservatively to secure the good to all living crea¬ 
tures. What are the legends of his race ? a tissue of treasons, 
assassinations, wrongs, sufferings, outrages, murders, abomi¬ 
nations, cruelties, pillages, pieties and impieties toward 
heaven, rebellions, revolutions. What is his world to him? 
nothin" but what his senses as his resources make it. What 

o 

does he see? orbs of fire dashing above his head, whose 
raging flames scorch the soil on which he treads, wLich ap¬ 
pear and disappear—hot worlds, which threaten, but do not 
dry up, consume the corrupt torrent of his guilty genera- 

* In h is Dialogues of the Dead. 

t In his Nature of the Gods. 


432 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


tions. What beside? that he is borne along in the motion o 
these worlds, which are rapidly carrying him from nothing 
to nothing. What does he feel? to himself a stranger among 
strangers. Darkness is both before and behind him. “ I live,” 
cries the true philosopher, “ amid the greatest obscurity; 
but amid this obscurity I behold the Divine Benevolence. 
Its beauty, loveliness charm me. It attracts me away from 
myself. I love, I will follow after it. I will be merciful to 
all that are animated by the divine breath of life—breath, 
which is the signet of the Divinity. Under its power I feel 
compassion for my race. I will return good for evil; right 
for wrong; joy for affliction; love for hatred; humility for 
arrogance. I will feel but pity, commiseration for the 
wrongs, sufferings I endure. I will imitate the ways, per¬ 
fections of the Sovereign of Good; press them on my heart; 
copy them in my life. I will follow after His benevolence. 
It will lead me from this obscurity to the light, which will 
show me the end of my existence—lead me to Him, which 
alone I desire.” 

“ Ah !” he cries—“ I live but amid desolations—the ruins 
of what has been. I breathe the same air all generations 
have breathed. Their sepulchres are my habitations. My 
pathway lies over their broken, shapeless bones. The soil 
on which food and flowers spring is their destroyed flesh. I 
but eat their flesh remodeled scarcely cold from the former 
life. Death, hateful death, is the giver of my food, the 
minister of my life. O! mutations, eternal revolutions of 
nature! which continually present the generations of organic 
man in the spoliations, in the life. These mutations have a 
voice; they call me to them in the hot blood. These revo¬ 
lutions are coming after; they will hide me in their great 
shadow. I fly. The hollow tomb re-echoes under my feet; 
the dead call to me as I pass and tell me my doom. O! 
scared life, that the archer death hunts down aguing in thy 
hot fire. 

“ I tread a lonely pathway through the gloom of my exist¬ 
ence. I weep at the altar of misericordia I have raised. 
Here animals ferociously devour their fellows; my race a 


CONCLUSION ON THE SENSATIONS. 


433 


thousand times has bathed the earth with angry blood, 
making of it the sepulchre of sepulchres. The red flames 
of war and persecution never cool. I hear the voice of sor¬ 
row, the wailings of grief. The good wither in obscurity. 
The pious waste in dungeons. The orphan’s cry does not 
engender food. Wickedness and madness sit on the seats 
of power, and rain on the people mischiefs and wrongs. 
The tears that are continually falling, keep the earth wet. 

“ I know not myself, nor am I known. Where leads my 
path through this infinity of worlds; through this solitude 
of my being ? The overflowings of my eyes shall smoothen its 
asperities. My sighs shall talk to me of the way. My joy 
shall be the imitation of the Divine Benevolence. I love, I 
desire to be beloved. Nothing but the love of the Infinite 
can console me, whom only I can love. My heart radiates 
its fire towards Him. It will twilight me on the way. But 
tell, ye fair, ye beautiful of morning, who walk in the blue 
above, tell me, whence came those snowy robes you wear, 
and that varicolored light I see, which announce your ap¬ 
proach, and, when you are gone, leave on the w^orld the 
grateful pledge of your return. From whom you first came 
to roam in heaven, where is He? Like me, do you tend to 
Him, round whom your blue curves bend? You give mo¬ 
tion to the w T ater of time, which bears me on. Conduct me 
thither. For it is there the radiant fire within me, the same 
with which you glow in the profusion, w T ould direct. I de¬ 
sire to replunge thy fountain. Lead me thither from this 
solitude, wdiere I cannot know or be known : where I love 
but cannot be beloved; where I sit down by the noisy 
stream of sorrow, and weep in darkness; and all I see but 
mocks my apprehension. Lead me; you know the way; 
for some of you were present at Bethlehem. Low then 
your trailing garments swept the dewy grass; and the wise 
men of the East followed after. You have conducted me to 
Bethlehem; the light breaks on Calvary. Its rays fall on 
my path; my senses are remodeled, and I see.” 


434 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


SECTION VII. 

r 

REASON. 

From reor , I judge, think. The Greeks, who paid great 
homage to reason, and who, in early times, had the honor of 
giving to its empire the most ample extension, called it 
’koyi$tios—%oyoimi —I speak—the same, which St. Paul says in 
the New Testament, “ was made flesh, and dwelt among 
men.” 

Reason, as all the remaining faculties, is an operation on 
the products of the senses, whose acts are the fundamental 
elements of the understanding. Where are its traces—re¬ 
cords? 

The volcanic fire has consumed ; the earthquake intomb- 
ed; the sea devoured, fire in the hands of war; war with 
her red fingers, has overturned; the crumbling tooth of all- 
powerful time has wasted; death and oblivion have blotted 
—all the busy powers of destruction have been active—but 
still they exist in ample undiminishable plenitude. They 
are scattered over the Oases, the Thebais, the great Delta 
of Egypt; the broad plateau of Asia and Europe. They 
are legible in the mausolea, columns, Sphynxes, Teraphim 
—in the ruins of Osymandias, Thebes, Heliopolis—in the 
thousand cities over whose magnificent remains the dust is 
falling, accumulating, and the blight of the desert sweeping 
—in the history of written thought—in the stones shapen for 
eternity into the likenesses of birds, beasts, men, gods, god¬ 
desses, intended to perpetuate the remembrances of govern¬ 
ments, people, manners, great actions, religions. To those 
who will be posterity to us, they will be more legible still 
in the sciences, arts, operations, inventions, enterprizes, in¬ 
dustry of living men. 

Traditions .—Where ranges thy course, O reason ! What 
limits thy mighty movement! The Fathers of men tore 
from thee the crazy trappings of time and space, erected 
thee into a Divinity, and paid holy homage. Shall their 
devotion to thee be now blamed! shame heaped upon the 


REASON. 


435 


gray hairs, whence we have come! Thou wast the first 
light that shone on the infant world; then the only light. 
The voice of tradition is, thou didst reveal thyself to the 
great Father of the sons of Bore; and made thy habitation 
on the shores fettered by the frost of the Scandinavian seas. 
That in the most ancient times, thou didst descend into 
flower-bearing India, and suffered thyself to be incarnated 
in the person of Brahma. The old Chaldeans, Phoenicians, 
Sabians, Moabites, Persians, saw r thy image in the flaming 
exterior of Bel, Osiris, and Oromasdes. The worshippers 
of Kneph regarded thee as having come down from Heaven 
with Hermes, who brought with him the alphabetical cha¬ 
racters, and engraved them on marble. 

The first poets saw thy shining feet walking on the Em¬ 
pyrean. They beheld thy radiant form in the eternal Fire, 
which created every thing out of himself. The early phi¬ 
losophers abandoned themselves to thy precepts; honored 
thee with the noble titles, “ the tongue of Heaven vocal in 
the ears of man “ repository on earth of the golden beams 
of light and truth;” “ medium between the finite and Infi¬ 
nite.” They heard thy voice calling them as “the voice of 
God,” and yielded themselves implicitly to thy sacred inspi¬ 
rations. 

But wdiere ranges thy course? We see it everywhere. 
It penetrates the exterior, the interior; the high, the low; 
the shallow, the deep—the compages of things—and the 
corroding flight of the seasons cannot efface it. Thy evi¬ 
dences are written on our hearts; they are manifest in the 
operations of the external, the internal senses, by which we 
eat the grain and refuse the husk; the honey but not the 
comb—by which we maintain our just proportions with the 
universe. They are engraven on every fibre of animated 
existence ; on every form of matter—the face of every star. 

Thy course is everywhere; thy pathway winds through 
all beings; we can trace it everywhere. It extends where 
we have not been— trans modnia jkmantia mundi; and van¬ 
ishes into that'infinite Abyss, whence all things first come, to 
which all tend. 


436 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


The Greeks joyfully received among them the Hermes of 
Egypt. They believed thou didst descend from Heaven with 
him; and gladly welcomed thee to their shores. It was in the 
days of their simplicity, and purity, thy approach was announ¬ 
ced. Then it was a law held sacred among them,—“who 
spoke, should speak the truth.” Hence they called thee 
which is thy proper, but since, abused name. 

The world is full of light. Its beams fall back on the eternal 
night, which hung once with incubus weight on the hearts 
of men. The efforts to disperse it throughout the comfort¬ 
less earth, where the human savage still roams forlorn, will 
be the glory of the actual epoch. An immortality of plea¬ 
sure, good is unveiled; all uncertainty, forever vanished 
The *oyo ? , has really descended; not the fabled one of the 
incarnated Brahma, or the companion of the Egyptian Her¬ 
mes ; but the true, the sovereign ^yo?, of the New Testament 
—the Eternal Reason, logic, wisdom, nature, end of things. 
But it is reason, as a faculty of the mind, which only has 
claims here to our efforts. 

Reason may be defined simply—a mode of mental activity. 
It operates with very varied intensity, excellence. This is 
manifest in the infinitely diversified force with which the 
same or different kinds of truth, are presented to different 
minds. Without culture it is nothing ; and truth is always 
felt by it with the greatest impetus, when it comes in the 
direction of this culture. 

The history of great men shows this variety in reason; and 
that there is an original aptitude in minds for the discrimina¬ 
tion, perception only of certain kinds of truth. When New¬ 
ton* read Locke’s Treatise on the Understanding, which had 
been kindly sent to him, he saw in it but little other than 
insanity. It inspired him with melancholy; and he said in 
his dejection of spirits—“ my old friend Locke has certainly 
gone mad.” But when M. Destutt-Tracy read the same 
work, it filled him with the most lively pleasure and enthu¬ 
siasm. His own mind showed to him in new and more am¬ 
ple dimensions. The same pleasure was felt by Malebranche. 

* Vid. Dr. Herschell’s Hist, and Life of Newton. 


REASON. 


437 


on looking over Descartes, which fixed forever after the di¬ 
rection of his studies. The minds of Locke, Destutt-Tracy, 
Descartes, and Malebranclie, were mirrors, that reflected 
alike the works of nature. They could recognize, trace in 
one another, the same images of thought, hid to the eyes of 
other men of different mould—images of immortality. 

The energetic geometrical sense of Newton did not allow 
him to see the truths demonstrated in the work of Locke— 
the first true and genuine system of logic, in the opinion of 
Destutt-Tracy, human genius ever offered to the w T orld. 
Nor were the sublime truths and demonstrations of the Prin- 
cipia less perplexing and puzzling to Mr. Locke. Thus 
these two great geniuses, climbing in the same age, in the 
loftiest regions of human contemplation, were as completely 
invisible, intangible to each other, as if born on different 
spheres. 

So energetic, specific, I may say, is the force of reason 
in some minds for the apprehension of particular truths, so 
annihilated is it in others for the same truths, that in the 
scale of its variations, like common sense, common reason 
consists simply in the nearest differences. The ground, 
therefore, on which criticism can erect a just and righteous 
tribunal is not very extensive. Though the shades of 
sanity and insanity run into each other, there is a line which 
separates. Reason is the hinge on which the mind turns 
between the two. Its operations not seen, often make man 
look insane to man wTere reason is; as was evidenced in 
the military manoeuvres of Buonaparte. Philosophers have 
generally refused this sublime faculty to brutes. We have 
already weighed it in them. It enjoj^s the greatest plenitude 
in man—fecund source of his sciences, arts, civilization. 
Armed with it, he looks out on the present; antiquity and 
futurity yield him their hid treasures, and be)mnd the senses, 
he mounts into an infinite orb of existence. 

But what is this powerful operative reason? Let us hear M. 
Destutt-Tracy. “Nosidees composees sont d’ abord toutes nos 
idees des etres de leurs qualites, de leurs modes, et des differ- 
entes classes etespeces des uns desautres; nous formons toutes 
37 


438 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


ces idees en reunissant, separant, et combinant les idees 
simples que ces differens etres nous causent.” It is the re¬ 
membrance of our simple and complex ideas ; their compari¬ 
son; the perception of their agreements or disagreements— 
the just appreciation of their relative values in separating, 
re-combining them into terms more or less general, that 
constitutes the operations of this faculty, and makes logic 
both the art and science of reason. Or, rather, it is the mind 
itself manifested in these various acts. 

Nothing has presented more difficulty to the mind than 
the discovery of a good method of directing its own forces 
in the acquisition of knowledge, which it never achieved till 
Bacon. At eighteen years, he had already detected very 
radical defects in all the plans which had preceded him. 
To remedy the evils growing out of these defects, and gain 
all that was possible from reason, he originated and published 
the Organon. Every one now knows the structure and 
operation. When this great intellectual engine was put iri 
motion in the world, all the sciences started suddenly for¬ 
ward, as if they had caught the breath of a new life, and 
since have been steadily advancing. 

ARTICLE I. 

Influence of local causes on reason. 

Nothing is more locally modifiable, as is evidenced in the 
different proportions of it exhibited by geographical man. 
In the regions where the sun burns, the propensities van¬ 
quish it; in glacial countries, the cold benumbs it. So that 
Fontenelle had authority in facts, for making the temperate 
zones the seat of empire, where it reigns with the greatest 
supremacy. If reason is an ever-varying quantity in man 
inhabiting the earth, it varies not less throughout the zoolo¬ 
gical calendar. 

ARTICLE II. 

Manner of its productiveness. 

We have seen, it is very complicated in its formation— 
constituted by most all the capital acts of the understanding. 


REASON-HOW PRODUCTIVE. 


439 


Hence it is easily confused; nothing is more seducible. It 
is to this circumstance has been greatly due its slow progress, 
and the vibratory movement it exhibits, as seen in the light 
of time. It is the great engine of all natural truth. It is 
slow in its operations, the developments it makes; so that 
the fruit it is bearing in one epoch, is often gathered by very 
distant posterity. And often, too, in the revolutions of gov¬ 
ernments, the changes of public affairs and opinions, its 
ripening fruit is blighted before it reaches maturity. His¬ 
tory bears the most ample testimony to these two positions. 
Let us adduce some of it. 

The knowledge of the true system of the world slept from 
Pythagoras to Copernicus. Homer, in his great epic song 
of Troy, flung early over war the mantle of the Muses, dyed 
with the most rich and gorgeous colors of fancy. His coun¬ 
trymen nourished in their hearts valor, and the loftiest am¬ 
bition. His efforts helped to fire the natural love of the 
glory of arms. Greece rose rapidly, and stretched out her 
empire. She nourished in her bosom philosophers, who 
warred with nature for truth, while her soldiers warred with 
nations for victory. 

Mean time, Pythagoras returned from the East, published 
the outlines of the true system of the sun and his planets. 
Numerous philosophers, compatriots, were pushing on after 
him in the route of discovery and demonstration. Fresh 
observations constantly confirmed truth, which had been 
obtained, and laid the foundation for new discovery. 

Much was doing, and had been done, when the Roman 
arms were turned against Greece; and her foreign allies 
began to rebel. In the change of the government, which 
fell into the hands of the Romans—of public opinions and 
occupations—the work was suspended in its career, when 
reason had brought her long and precious labour near to 
completion. Again, when the love of knowledge and the 
taste of letters began to revive in Europe, and relume man¬ 
kind, after the long night of oblivion, which had passed over 
the world, Copernicus w r ith others pursued on in the path 
Pythagoras had first opened. A few noble minds succeeded, 


440 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


which threw out the platform, on which Newton finally 
reared up the demonstration, and fitted in all the materials 
of truth and evidence. 

Had fortune continued but a little longer faithful to Greece, 
it can but be evident^ reason had consummated her work there. 
With all the preparation on hand, the materials to be wrought 
all fresh and full of strength, it had been much easier than 
in England:—And some Grecian philosopher now had worn 
on his head the crown, which Newton wears, thrust twenty 
centuries lower in time. 

Among the many, I will record one other example. The 
writings of Sidney, (disgusted at the usurpations of Crom¬ 
well,) of Locke, and others, on government, civil liberty, 
and the rights we inherit from nature to be free, fecundated 
reason. A public interest was felt, which secured to these 
topics ample discussion and research. Soon came forth from 
different pens a number of monographs on international law, 
civil polity, private and public rights—the philosophy of 
government. 

In proportion as reason, by her slow operations, revealed 
truth, and conquered error, the public mind became enlight¬ 
ened on the principles of liberty. And these truly great 
men hoped, one day, their country would enjoy the freedom 
they saw. 

Our fathers brought with them across the water the light 
in their bosoms; and the moment the occasion offered, it 
bursted out in the flames of the revolution. Our Magna Charta 
—liberty—is the offspring of this reason, which has found 
room with us; but which, the chances of the world as yet 
have not allowed to operate in form, in the countries that 
gave it the first impulse. 

Thus reason fecundated in one country, yields its slow 
ripening fruit to the enjoyment of another; in one epoch, to 
another far remote in futurity. Concluding these illustra¬ 
tions, may I say, but for Providence, posterity ought ever to 
regret, that civil Greece, the voice of whose philosophy, 
whose Muses, must eternally inspire mankind, could not 


REASON—AFFECTED BY PHYSICAL CAUSES. 441 

have remained longer, and not fallen in the midst of the 
light she had kindled on the world. 

ARTICLE III. 

Influence of physical causes bearing on the future. 

Since man is born with the fear and dread of the future 
always before his eyes, unusual occurrences—prodigies—the 
slightest jar in the movements of nature—weaken or totally 
subvert this faculty. 

1. The meteoric illumination, or “the falling of the stars,” 
which occurred in the autumn of 1833, spread cold fear with 
its stupefaction, and awakened the most terrific apprehen¬ 
sions among the populace. The learned considered it, “ the 
explosion of some ignifiable vapors or display of natural py¬ 
rotechnic art;” those who saw only with their eyes, took it 
to be “ the real tumbling down of the elements.”* 

The security exhibited by the learned was not without 
affectation. All looked with suspicion upon the yellowish, 
pale, rosy nebulosity which obscured the face of heaven. 
All feared these new visitors in this storm of flames, wide¬ 
spread combustion—these globes of fire as hurled by Omni¬ 
potence in fiercest ignition to the earth. 

After the succeeding night, when it had been discovered, 
the stars were all fast in their orbits, the stories told of the 
transports of this fear, far outstrip in the ridiculous, the real 
laughable, all those of Rabelais, Cervantes, or Quievedo. 
Stulta corda mortalia. 

2. The stroke of several earthquakes, in the year 1807, was 
very lively felt throughout the Southern States. The gloomy 
and portending in religion, beheld in these earthquakes, 
which would have scarcely attracted notice in Sicily or Ca¬ 
labria, the fulfilment of Scripture. Many singular phenomena 

* With greater or less intensity, this meteorization appears to have ex¬ 
tended throughout the U. States, and was observed by the navigators on the 
Atlantic. It continued in Georgia during the 12 hours of night, the whole 
heaven a boiling torrent of flaming stars, rushing confused in every direction 
to the earth. 


37* 


442 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS 


accompanied them—strange sounds in the air—voices articu¬ 
lating mysterious words—mothers untimely shedding the 
fruit of love—visitations of preternatural figures in sleep— 
altered appearance of the human visage—sudden vibration 
of the stars when looked at. 

The pious Quakers, who had chosen the middle region of 
S. Carolina a home for their descendants in mass suddenly 
vacated their beautiful farms for Ohio, the land of better 
promise. The 10th of August had been predicted and fixed 
upon as the day of doom. The unlettered pulpits of the 
country were vocal on the scenes of this day, as on the cer¬ 
tainty ; and, it was not until after it had passed, it was not 
held to be the last of the world. 

3. Connected closely in time with the assassination of 
Julius Caesar, a caliginosity gathered on the face of the sun; 
and there occurred a great diminution of his light. The 
Romans, in their furious jealousy and suspicions, had de¬ 
stroyed Caesar. Fortune had followed him; he had enjoyed 
the smiles of Bellona; Jupiter Capitolinus had succored him 
in the long career of conquest and glory he had run. Covered 
by the iEgis of Minerva, he had “conquered three hundred 
nations,” “ taken eight hundred citiesand humbled the 
haughtiest foes Rome ever had. The Supreme Powers were 
offended. Unnatural darkness had spread abroad. What 
light remained was strange, unusual; and the aspects of 
things no longer the same. 

In vain they thronged the temple of victory to offer their 
sacrifices; the Stygian shades had gathered; and eternal 
night was fast hastening on the world. They fastened their 
eyes on the great caldron of light, whose torrent they had 
expected would pour forever. The last rays appeared to be 
boiling out; and they could behold the deep, black, scori¬ 
fied bottom, where had burnt the flames of so many days. 

Plorantes anxia mente plurima volvunt .—Things had lost 
the tenor of their way.—Wolves howled in the cities at 
night.—The sacred altars were covered with perspiration. 
—The ivory, which adorned the temples, seemed to mourn 
and weep.—Figures of strange and wonderful form were 


REASON*—AFFECTED BY PHYSICAL CAUSES. 


443 


walking abroad.—Eridanus, “king of wandering floods,” 
had mistaken his way; and was running lawless through 
the woods.—Trembling, the Alps shook their high tops. 

F earing, in the absence of reason, what cannot mortals see? 
Philosophers say, “one sense serves to correct another.” 
But it is reason, which corrects the errors of them all. Rea¬ 
son uprighted, commands the Alps to be still; remands the 
gigantic shades of death to the prison of Rhadamanthus. 
This paleness, decay of the sun’s light,* and the murder of 
Csesar, called forth from Virgil these beautiful lines:— 

* Servius supposed this darkness to be occasioned by an eclipse; but 
Scaliger affirms there was no eclipse on this or the following year. Pliny 
regarded this solar obscuration as a prodigy connected with Caesar’s fate. 
Plutarch says “ there was a peculiar dulness about the sun— Circa solem 
quoque hebetatio splendoris —he continued the whole year without emitting 
much light or heat— Toto illo anno pallens ejus globus , et sine fulgore 
oriens , debilem et tenuem emisit calorem. —The atmosphere continued 
loaded with heavy clouds, and moisture; and the fruits of the earth did not 
ripen. 

We may suppose the appearance of the sun, which struck the Romans 
with so much apprehension and terror, was similar in character to that 
which happened a few years since among us. When several dark, slaty- 
looking blotches of considerable size, with others tinged with pale, red or 
orange, were very visible to the naked eye on his disk. And the light 
emitted, as seen on white walls, was pale, purplish or slightly blue, resem¬ 
bling somewhat that seen in sulphurous and antimonial combustion; the 
entire amount of illumination being very sensibly enfeebled and diminished. 

This darkness, peculiar appearance of our sun, corresponds in quality 
very exactly with that which happened in the age of Justinian as described 
by Zonaras. In intensity and duration, the Justinian darkness, according to 
Zonaras, agrees precisely with that which occurred on the assassination of 
Caesar, as above in the account of Plutarch. Adhelmus speaks of a remarka¬ 
ble decay of light in the age of Charlemagne. 

We may, perhaps, regard all such failure of light, as caused by spots more 
or less numerous, occurring at the same time, on the face of the sun. 
Scheiner discovered them, the first, at Ingolstadt with the telescope. Soon 
after, they were seen by Galileo at Florence. They are not always visible 
to the naked eye. 

Since the beginning of the 19th century, they appear to have become of 
much more frequent occurrence. According to W. Herschel, they are 
caused by vapors rushing up from the deep fissures of the sun’s fractured 
surface, which drive before them immense rolling clouds of condensed light 


444 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


—Solem quis discere falsum 
Audeat? ille etiam coecos instare tumultus 
Sacpe monet: fraudemque; et operta tumescere bella. 
Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam 
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, 

Impiaque aeternam timuerunt saecula noctem. 

Gcorgica 1—463. 


ARTICLE IV. 

Modifying influence of moral causes. 

It is never the interest of all men to cultivate reason. 
Some rulers, as Fenelon so justly remarks, find error useful 
in maintaining their authority over tlieir subjects. These 
errors are very various. Numa, all the ecclesiastics who 
held the civil power, fostered the error of superstition. 
Monarchs, despotic rulers, hold on to the throne by aliment¬ 
ing, encouraging popular ignorance. Thus the profana¬ 
tion, starvation of reason, become the convenient resources 
of power, wealth, ambition, royalty. The empiric of all 
professions lives by his forgeries, flatteries, hypocrisies and 
blasphemies against reason. 

Reason is the companion only of pure virtue; and, for¬ 
lorn! answers completely the views of the fewest number 
of mankind. Hence have stood in the world, from all an¬ 
tiquity, with the strength of monumental marble, absurdity 
and falsehood, the energetic, achieving engines of human 
wishes, ambitions. 

Fanaticism in religion, politics—all the passions carried 
too far, tend to enfeeble, extinguish the beatiful light of this 
flambeau, kindled up in us to combat the natural darkness 
in which we are born. Occasionally these passions rage 
epidemically, and sometimes consume whole ages. The hot 
furnace, in which they boil becoming cooled, often it hap¬ 
pens, one generation looks back on another with distrust and 
astonishment, and the course of reason appears lost on the 

through the solar atmosphere. This light constitutes the shining exterior 
of the sun. These vapors darting up, dash on, rolling up in clouds the radi¬ 
ant matter, and appear dark spots—or, in places, expose the black scoriacious 
surface of the solar body. 


REASON—ITS PHYSIOLOGY. 


445 


route of time. Indeed, what feeling of our nature is it that 
has not had its paroxysmal burnings? 

Among these moral epidemics, I may mention that of 
baptism, which raged so high some ages since, that every 
midwile was commissioned, in the event the foetus was 
about perishing in parturition, to administer this sacred 
ordinance, impulsione aquce sacrce. Every one knows the 
ridicule and irresistible laughter, into which Sterne* has con¬ 
verted this pious folly. The polemic divinity of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries; the holy wars , which caused so 
great and useless a devastation of our species;, knight- 
errantry; transfusion of blood for perpetual rejuvenation; 
discovery of the alkahest , philosopher’s stone , the universal 
menstruum; quadration of the circle; scar, mark deep on 
our modern ages, the epidemic fury of the passions. 

But sometimes the cultivation of a particular science or 
sciences comes in fashion : then the passions, redeeming for 
the mischief they had done, in their milder form come in 
aid of reason. Thus geometry after Newton, chemistry 
after Lavoisier, made a quick and rapid advance toward 
perfection. Philosophical anatomy, operative medicine, 
internal improvement, are doing the same in the actual 
time. 

Through this paroxysmal force of our nature, one day, the 
love of the line arts, as the fire, which warms my meridional 
country, will burn; and the beautiful statuary marble of 
Cherokee, the Arcadia of Georgia, will catch life from the 
chisel; and impart it durably to those, who shall give fresh 
and pure developments to reason advancing public happiness. 

ARTICLE V. 

Physiology of reasoning . 

The impressions made on the senses become ideas; all 
individuality of the action is lost. We know not the abstract 
state of the encephalon in the acts purely mental. The 
immediate condition of all these acts, according to M. 


* Tristram Shandy. 


446 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


Richerand, is a stream of arterial blood freely impregnated 
with atmospheric oxygen, jetted by the heart into the midst 
of the encephalic substance. They depend directly upon 
the force of formation, or the assimilation of foreign alimen¬ 
tary matters into the cerebral substance. The continued 
action of the mind, as in declamation, stimulates this force, 
and the cerebrum attracts derivatively upon itself an undue 
quantity of the nutritive blood. In this state, the nutrition 
of the other organs is partially suspended in favour of the 
brain—state alone in which great thought can be produced. 

Accordingly, if a stimulus be applied to any other organ, 
as food to the stomach, which will antagonize this deriva¬ 
tive movement to the brain, the mind is instantly unmanned 
—shorn of its power. All powerful achievements of the 
mind, great discoveries, have been made on an empty sto¬ 
mach. The Muses aliment only on the thin air of the 
mountain, and the Castalian waters. Newton and Mendel¬ 
sohn studied hungry, and fell from their meditations into a 
state of partial death and insanity, from which it was diffi¬ 
cult to arouse them. Boerhaave only took food enough to 
prevent disease, secured a permanent derivation of nutritive 
blood to his brain, and felt that angels were administering 
his ideas to him from Heaven. It is only in the hot focus 
of the plastic attraction of the brain, to which the fuel of the 
arterial blood unduly rushes, that the soul stirs abroad in all 
its strength, and the sciences grow. 

By this, we may understand the influence of the passions 
on reason noticed in the last article. They stimulate the 
organs, which the ganglionic or trisplanchnic portion of the 
nervous system supplies with functions. These organs, thus 
stimulated, disturb the equilibrium of the circulation, con¬ 
centrate on themselves the repairing agent from the brain 
and other structures. In their abnormal excitement, the 
nutrition of the cerebrum is lowered, and all the pure acts 
of the mind enfeebled or annihilated. It can now only see 
through these organs, which reflect what light it has left. 

Thus she, who smites the lover, no longer appears to him 
in the perfect reality. His heart exhales thick clouds, and 


REASON—DISTRIBUTION OF. 


447 


he beholds her only in the prismatic colors. By these colors 
nature monogamic consecrates her to his care and affections; 
and thus, by sweet delusion, her own reality, she pushes 
forward the great bark on the ocean of time, in which the 
individuals of all our generations are the passengers. 

The full action of reason is held in suspension by the 
plethora the passions produce in the internal organs, tend¬ 
ing, in their perseverance, to disorganizing phlogosis. It 
promptly recovers from their temporary excitements, but in 
the chronic diseases they produce, it remains permanently 
weakened. Cervantes knew nature, who represented Don 
Quixote lean , gaunt; the skin dried and hard —the mere 
burnt cinder of the flames he nourished for Dulcinia del 
Toboso—she herself, a mere wench, who could fan wheat, 
and handle heavy meal-bags. 

ARTICLE VI. 

Distribution of reason throughout the living scale . 

Philosophers continue to make great distinctions between 
reason and instinct. But why give generic names to the 
different manifestations of the same thing ? Is it not more 
conformable to observation, to think there is a peculiar rea¬ 
son allotted to each order of organic existences, which 
guides them on the course of life; by which they are ena¬ 
bled to accomplish the various acts that fill up the measure 
and end of their being ? 

Incidentally, already, I have adverted to some of the phe¬ 
nomena of brute reason. In all the races, this reason ap¬ 
pears to be in relation—to be modified especially to accom¬ 
modate the various capabilities of motion of the external 
organs of creatures. It harmonizes with the entire organi¬ 
zation, but especially with the external mechanical parts. 
Or, in other words, reason appears to be distributed through¬ 
out the zoologic series, according to the general organic 
types of animals, but bears special relation to their exterior 
forms, the immediate achieving instruments. 

Accordingly, had the horse the reason of Canova, he 


448 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


would not have hands to use the chisel on marble like 
him. Had the lamb the claws of the lion, his teeth would 
not tear, his appetite receive, or his assimilatory organs di¬ 
gest, the prey, he might take. 

The use of all perceptions is the end or good the organs 
can make out of them through achieving volition—attribute 
of all life. The internal senses illuminate the good and the 
evil of the objects which stimulate to these perceptions, and 
the reason impresses direction on the voluntary acts. The 
external perceptions, the internal, expressed in the acts of 
the voluntary instruments for conservation, guide on the 
course of life, and fill up individual destiny. 

A perception isolated from reason, which would have 
nothing to accomplish in the animal, whose senses had ori¬ 
ginated it, would be a lapsus of nature that cannot be. 
Every perception, as every organ, therefore, is a part in the 
end of animal being—is a part of reason; and reason must 
vary in creatures, as vary the senses and the instruments 
which achieve the end of sensation. Can they do less than 
we? they have fewer or less perfect instruments. Can 
they do more than we ? what we cannot ? they have special 
instruments. 

Reason is the sovereign force in animality. “ A certain 
philosopher,” says M. Virey, “had scruples whether he 
should ride or walk.” He observed his horse’s forehead 
sloped more suddenly back than his own, leaving to him 
the superiority of reason, which authorized him to mount, 
and ride. Reason has the natural right to govern. Will 
rulers ever understand it so? It is its supremacy alone 
written on his uplifted countenance, vultis sublimis , which 
bestows on man dominion among his inferior fellow-crea¬ 
tures. 


IMAGINATION. 


449 


SECTION VIII. 

IMAGINATION. 

From imago , an image— imaginor —I conceive, make, or 
feel an image—a representation. 

It is not so easy to speak successfully of this faculty— 
this beautiful enchantress of the soul in poetry, painting, all 
the graphic arts. The pleasure or pain the mind feels in 
forming images of absent objects, cannot equal what it feels 
in their immediate perception by the senses. The pleasure 
then with which imagination ravishes, must consist in the 
infinitely greater number of images it can present at the 
same time; and in remodeling them, so as to strike us with 
novelty, presenting new and unperceived relations between 
things. By this remodeling power, Byron has struck at the 
purity, sanctity of the nuptial couch, planting in it an invi¬ 
sible dagger, if he has presented outward nature in more 
beautiful light — Bulwer and Byron have wrought over 
murder and robbery—the black spots in human nature— 
with attractions sufficient to extort the unwelcome admira¬ 
tion of mankind. In this respect, this faculty can operate 
energetically to the good or evil of the world. 

Most of the metaphysicians consider imagination princi¬ 
pally as a species of memory. It appears to us the limits 
they assign, are much too narrow. All the perceptions of 
the external senses are its materials. These it can modify 
at pleasure, and shape into shadowy worlds, presenting to 
reason new fields of activity. Thus it conducted Homer, 
Virgil, and Dante, into the shades below, and produced an 
account of those gloomy realms, the senses could read. It 
elevated Milton to the Empyrean, and led him into the Pre¬ 
sence, where “ no eye can look and live.” Through its high 
inspirations, he dared to clothe the face of the Almighty, 
with the expression of sentiment, and his lips with words 
to roll out his chariot of war, whose “ flaming wheels shook 
Heaven’s everlasting frame;” and compose hymns for the 
Seraphim. 

38 


450 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


—“ Thee, Father, first they sung, omnipotent, 

Immutable, immortal, infinite, 

Eternal King, the Author of all being, 

Fountain of light, thyself invisible 

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sittest, 

Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest 
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud 
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine 
Dark with excessive light thv skirts appear, 

Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim 
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.” 

i 

Aided by it, he sung the “ martial arms ,’ 7 the war of 
Heaven, angels the combatants; made them utter speeches 
in the dialect of their high spheres ;—unloosed the tongue of 
Satan; breathed on him thought’s ambrosial form, which 
caused the infernal vaults of fire to ring with the most 
impassioned eloquence.* 

Essentially architectonic, this faculty is the life of poetry, 
gives to all language, oral or written, its animation, to elo¬ 
quence its fire, peculiar touch, and, to all the works of art, 
their grace and beauty. It is the only power by which in¬ 
tellectual man is permitted, in some little degree, to walk in 
the footsteps, and rival his Divine Creator. 

It is possessed in very different degrees by different minds; 
men are very unequal in respect to it. It can exalt or de¬ 
press genius. Some men it guides in the career of glory; 
some, as an ignis fatuus , it leads to the dungeon ; some, to 
riches and honor; some, to poverty and degradation. 

It is the kind, the cruel, the beautiful mother of fable. In 
the hands of Prometheus, it stole fire from the caldron of 
the sun to start the pulse of Pandora. In the sound of Or¬ 
pheus’ harp, it brought up Eurydice from the Stygian shades 

* In the high regions to which imagination soars, it appears to have its 
limits. If not so, why should great geniuses, such as Milton, copy one 
another so closely as they often do. After the second battle between the 
Greeks and Trojans, compare Homer’s account of the forthcoming of Jupi¬ 
ter’s war-chariot with that of Jehovah’s by Milton. Milton often falls in 
so closely with Dante, as to have the appearance of a translation. In his 
Dante, Boyd has pointed out many of these fac-similes of thought. Komp- 
stock, who passed over the same topics, is more free from them. 


IMAGINATION. 


451 


into open day. It forever mocks the parched lips of Tan¬ 
talus with water; inflicts on him the torments of eternal 
thirst; rolls up the smoking summit of Tartarus the stone 
in the hands of Sisyphus, punishing with ceaseless toil. 

It is an energetic, fearful power. Its voice can strike at 
once the blow of death ; and almost rob the grave of its 
victims. It can exercise a most energetic therapeutic agency 
in disease, or in lingering sickness, disappoint recovering 
health, and lead the sufferer slowly along through gloom and 
despair to the sojourn of the dead. Aesculapius cured dis¬ 
eases by making verses for them, as often as by medicine— 
Sunt verba et voces , quibus hunc lenire dolorem possis —Ho¬ 
race. In the Iliad of Homer, the blood of the heroes was 
staunched, and life recovered by the singing of songs. Mu¬ 
sic, according to Dr. Mead, relieves the bite of the Tarantula 
in the Apulian Isles. According to Pindar, Chiron, the 
Centaur, by some verses, removed enchantments. Theo¬ 
phrastus says, “ the sciatica is cured by the magic of poetry.” 
Cato puts down some words for the reduction of luxations; 
and Varro some, as a certain cure for gout. All antiquity 
had great confidence in the sanative powers of imagination. 
The honey made by the bees in the tomb of Plippocrates, 
cured diseases throughout all Greece—a superstition, which 
probably attaches to honey till this day. And we know 
Apollo was the god of medicine as of imagination or poetry. 

Imagination can seize doubtful victory on the field of bat¬ 
tle, or lose it after it is won, by inspiring cowardice. It can 
displace a virtuous sovereign; vacate the throne of a great 
people; and put on it a worthless tyrant. 

It worships at the altar of God; frolics in Pandemonia; 
administers in the Cabala, Orgies, Mysterious Rights. It 
expands its light beyond the universe, illuminates the sane, 
the insane; creates new senses for enjoyment, suffering. 
Sorcery, vanity, superstition, hope, ambition, fanaticism, 
enthusiasm, bigotry—all the propensities, passions of our 
nature—swarm after its heels; lick the dust, and pay 
homage. 

It is a great original! In the clouds it erects palaces of 


452 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


ivory and gold; lofty seats of honor and pleasure; gives to 
the trump of fame a louder note, fixes new suns to shine on 
flowery, silky worlds; the winds with softer, sweeter breath 
to blow. It framed the great shades below; put fire to the 
waters of Cocytus; spread out the Elysian Fields; covered 
them with fruits and flowers; banished winter—How melo¬ 
dious its voice! 

-“ Elysium shall be thine, those blissful plains 

Of utmost earth, where Rhadamanthus reigns. 

Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear 
Crown the whole circle of the eternal year. 

From the bleak poles no winds inclement blow, 

Mould the round hail or flake the fleecy snow; 

But from the breezy deep the Blessed inhale 
The fragrant murmurs of the Western gale.'” 

But whence come the resources, power, dominion of ima¬ 
gination? It has, as I have said, at its disposal, all the ideas 
derived from the external senses. The operative materials 
are principally the same as in reasoning. Reason separates, 
unites them accordingly as their prototypes or external 
causes are separated, united in nature. It modifies them 
according to the rigid order of nature. Reason properly 
conducted, and truth, therefore, must exist everywhere in 
indissoluble union. 

But imagination separates, combines — modifies—these 
ideas according to an order it sets up and establishes for 
itself. The truth of imagination is their faithful separation, 
selection and union according to this order. This is the 
truth of poetry, romance, the works of the fine arts—the 
truth covered with starry garments, with so many charms, 
and fascinating delusions—so popular in the actual epoch. 

But since error and falsehood are deformity, and can never 
please, this order of imagination copies, follows after the 
order of nature. Thus faithfully copied, the philosophy, 
truth of poetry, and of fiction derivative, are not less true 
than that of the philosophy, science of nature, whose pure 
truth is the representation of the phenomena of the world 
as they really exist. 


IMAGINATION. 


453 


The truth of reason, I may say, is nature’s, of imagination 
man’s stamped upon it. Imagination, therefore, like reason, 
is governed by the laws of nature. If the truth of imagina¬ 
tion does much evil, it returns in compensation, and does 
much good. It would be impossible to strike the balance 
between the two, and not leave an amount in favor of the 
good. It animates and sustains reason in its long and ardu¬ 
ous flights—holds up to it the garlands, the crowns—burns it 
with the hot rays of glory. It pushes at the wheels of sci¬ 
ence, arts. Without it, reason—all the faculties would be 
plunged into gloom, into a mournful, lifeless solitude—hiber¬ 
nal darkness. 

In the darkness of great antiquity, when David and Isaiah 
sung, it poured forth its greatest splendor and beauty. In a 
thousand songs, and other forms of thought, streaming down 
the smoky talus of time, it comes in aid of virtue, patriotism, 
anthroposophy, charity, humility, the giving a cup of cold 
water to a disciple, religion—and in the heavy showers, it 
lets fall from our eyes, washes away, and cools the burning 
anguish of sorrow. It often rallies hope to dispel the clouds 
shutting us up in darkness, which despair had been fishing 
up from the bottomless deep. It burns with a brilliant light 
on the brow of humanity by the side of reason. 

A great amount of imagination wild and beautiful, since 
all antiquity, has poured up from the East, and overspread 
Europe, the world. This continued long the country, where 
it manifested its greatest natural vigor; and it was here where 
it reigned, came the inspiration of Heaven. But since the 
sword of the Saracen has cursed, it has remained there un¬ 
productive. 

I know not that brutes possess this faculty. The people 
of different countries, as individuals, differ very much in 
relation to it. Like reason, it is modified by climate, locality, 
food, manner of life, disease.—But imagination geographical, 
civil, medical, is proscribed by our limits. 


454 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

SECOND ORDER. 

THE PASSIONS. 

From passio — patior , I endure, suffer. 

Some philosophers, divines, moralists, metaphysicians, 
delight to contemplate man, as composed of fierce, explosive, 
heterogeneous elements, ever tending, ever ready to lose 
their equilibrium, and fall into open disorder. They present 
the moral field of human nature tented for perpetual war. 
On the one side, they array reason; on the other, the pas¬ 
sions. The great prize, laurel, to be won or lost in this peril¬ 
ous struggle, is happiness . As long as victory librates on 
the side of reason, as reason holds the reins of empire, the 
cause of happiness is maintained; but when the passions 
are victorious, the reverse. 

This view is vicious—fabulous. The fundamental prin¬ 
ciples on which it rests, are not those of our nature. It per¬ 
sonifies reason and the passions ; makes of each a separate 
and distinct being ; it then compares together, and presents 
them in the mutilated relations in which it forces them to 
appear. Reason and the passions are not separate, independ¬ 
ent entities. This is the error, and the view itself poetical, 
not philosophical. It ought to be abandoned. 

Man, who wears on his brow still the faded image of the 
Deity, is not a compages of divellent, untempered, disordered 
elements. He occupies, enjoys in all his being, the elevated 
places, the high grounds of his world ; and when he would 
see, he must look down. Tollitur ad sidera vultus , et injini- 
tivum spatii orbem. In power he is a definite quantity ope¬ 
rative—designed to be operative in the midst of nature—an 
integral part of his world reciprocal in action. His forces 
balance against themselves, and against those of the universe. 
Look at him moving in the great orbit of his ages. At one 
time some of his elements, forces, are in the excess, at an- 


PASSIONS. 


455 


other, in the defect of action; but in the great equation of 
their movements, like the astral bodies in the equation of 
time, they maintain equilibrium; and man’s identity, uni¬ 
formity, are seen in the great life of these ages. 

If you would behold him in his true colors, in what he is, 
you must look at him not only in his solitary, individual life, 
but in the great flights of time. Here he shows in some 
small variation of light and shadow; but in his radical being, 
he is ever immutable and the same. If it be not so, when 
has it been, that he has not raised his altars to gratify his 
natural theosophy ? His temples of worship are the oldest, 
most costly, magnificent monuments, ruins of the world he 
has inhabited. If man, in his reason, in his passions, has 
not always loved himself, loved man, what is the meaning 
of the urns, mummies, sarcophagi, tombstones, mausolea, 
which have descended from the greatest antiquity, and 
which will continue to descend? When has the good 
Samaritan not been passing over the earth; that one mortal 
has not rejoiced on seeing another rejoice, not wept, on see¬ 
ing another weep ; that pity has not moved; sorrow spread 
like contagion; tyrants, and abusers of mankind, been cursed; 
the benefactors of the species honored; good and happiness 
loved; evil and wretchedness hated; that war has not 
brushed, devastated; epidemics, raged and slaughtered; 
peace and health returned ? Man is both morally and phy¬ 
sically unchangeable. 

It is in this fixed identity of his being, by their literary 
compositions, labors of art, men of ancient times continue 
constantly to live over again in evolutionary posterity, to 
whom their works come. Had Burton,* Cervantes,! Sterne, J 
written at the time of the Trojan war, they would have 
come laughing, and frolicking all the way down ages. Bax¬ 
ter’s Saint’s Rest, and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, would 
have excited solemn reflection and sentiment; and the 
works of Sappho and Corneille, as they partially have done, 
would have marked the way with tears. 

* Anatomy of Melancholy. t Knight of La Mancha. 

t Tristram Shandy. 


456 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


It was ignorance at first—the love of hypothesis, system 
since—that ever could have represented human nature, 
against all the facts I have mentioned, as composed of muta¬ 
ble, rebellious, repulsive forces; and seen this strife, these 
everlasting combats, between reason and the Marmadon 
passions. 

This military hypothesis of our nature is more vicious 
than the hateful selfishness, the utilitarianism of Bentham,* 
or that, which shows man out on the scale of infinite perfecti¬ 
bility, revived principally in modern times by Helvetius. 

The view we here question, it is believed, finds support 
in the expression of St. Paul:—“For the flesh lusteth 
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these 
are contrary.”! In other places this divine philosopher avows 
—“ the flesh,” or passions and instincts of our nature, are 
at open war with the reason of religion. 

Since the affair of Eden, this is mournfully true; our 
passions answer no longer to the Divine Reason, who made 
us; and our own reason is incapable of their rectification. 
But we should feel a lively joy and gratitude, that there is 
“ a way for our escape ;” and, that through these very pas¬ 
sions, which are supposed to be proscribed, condemned, we 
can feel the light, the love, which guide us on this way; and, 
at the remembrance of its piteous, melancholy story, are 
permitted the pleasure of sorrow, humility, obedience.—Man, 
forlorn! has lost the facilities of pleasing his Divine Creator; 
the flower of his obedience has faded, but heaven still looks 
after, calls him. He is worth something yet. If the face 
of him which looks upward, has faded in brightness, and 
discords; he harmonizes with his world, its brightest orna¬ 
ment, and with himself, in all his being’s faculties. Through 
his passions he can feel his Creator, and the “ price” with 
which he is “ bought.” And religion straightens out the 
warped parts of his being, as pure philosophy purges his 
soul from the blemishes of ignorance. 


* Principles of Morals and Legislation. 


t Galatians, 5—17. 


PASSIONS—THEIR NATURE. 


457 


SECTION I. 

CHARACTER, END AND USE OF THE PASSIONS. 

To illustrate a preceding part of this work, I was com¬ 
pelled to anticipate much of what would properly fall here ? 

Some of the passions, as joy, gladness,—expand the vital 
movement, or are accompanied with an exaltation of life; 
some, as grief, despair,—concentrate this movement, are 
attended by depression. In the last terms to which they 
can be reduced, the passions are but the soul itself. They 
are its manifestations arising from the particular agencies, 
influences of the organism. They are impressed upon it 
by stimulations from without, are the clouded exterior gar¬ 
ment, if I may so express it, it w 7 ears in its sojourn of matter; 
and the vital exaltation or depression, which accompanies their 
displays, depends on their intensity, as on the values of the 
functions of the organs on which they fall. 

The external senses, as already, furnish us with ideas 
simply of external objects; the internal senses distinguish 
between these objects; appreciate the good and the evil: the 
passions are neatly the modifications of the mind, which ac¬ 
company internal sensation so distinguishing, appreciating. 

In the orignal constitution of the world, it would appear, 
the influences of matter tend equally to good and evil, to 
life and death. Hence we have senses stationed on the 
body’s exterior to observe its various forms; interior senses 
to appreciate their influences; a voluntary, muscular sys¬ 
tem, and a will to court, draw these influences upon us, or 
repel them :—A law of nature has been given, by wdiich we 
love life and fear death, active forces in directing the move¬ 
ments of the will. This love and fear in some sort form 
the two great foci, in which all the other passions play. 
The good is all those things material or moral, whose stimu¬ 
lations tend to the pleasure, increase, and conservation of 
life; the evil, those of a contrary tendency. The passions, 
therefore, primary elements in the will’s actions on the 


458 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


voluntary muscles, form the medium, through which the 
mind sees the good and the evil of things: Or as the eye 
sees the various colors of objects in the different sorts of 
rays they reflect, so the mind sees, as I may say, the evil 
and the good in the rays of the passions, which things 
transmit. 

If, accordingly, a sphere exists in space, of which life is 
an appanage, where all the properties, forces of external 
objects are in perfect and happy unison with this life, the 
passions there, so far as the constitution of this sphere is 
concerned, would be a superfluity. They physically could 
have no end to achieve. The power of perceiving and 
approaching—or sensation and volition would only be neces¬ 
sary. But in a constitution of matter like ours, where the 
forces tend equally to death and to life; and, where the con¬ 
tinuance of life depends momentarily upon the management 
of these forces, the passions are necessitated to fill up the 
measure of successful conservation. 

These forces, therefore, which librate for and against life, 
profound the law of its love, and the fear of death, which 
nature has planted deep in the heart. And from the oppo¬ 
site tendencies of these forces, as philosophers, we may con¬ 
clude, that matter here is achieving ends in the great eco¬ 
nomy of the Divine Creator, in which our organic being 
forms no part, has no concern. 

The great springs of action, the passions, occupy a high 
rank in our being. Nature having intrusted to them a part 
of the means of conservation has inspired us with interest 
and admiration for them. To history, poetry, fable, they 
give the coloring. As imagination fashions into form, they 
paint. It is they, we feel, when we read. By their light 
and shadow, they exalt, depress the mind’s intellectual 
activity. After Maro had labored many long years on his 
heroic poem, despair came, and tempted him to consign it 
to the fire: but the hope of success revived, snatched the 
immortal JEniad from the flames, and sent singing down 
time sweet-voiced the swan of Mantua. Sustained lono* 

o 

upon the uplifted wing of the tired Muse, the passions, 


PASSIONS—THEIR NATURE. 


459 


which had sustained Ovid through the gloom of chaos and 

change of forms, suddenly expanded a beautiful light, when 

he sung:— 

© 

Jamque opus exegi: quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, 

Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. 

Cum volet ilia dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus 
Jus habeat, incerti spatium mihi finiat ajvi: 

Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis 
Astra ferrar ; nomenque erit indelibile nostrum. 

Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, 

Ore legar populi:— 

How nimbly and beautifully does thought trip along 
under the sunny warmth of such feelings. All the passions, 
which impress vivacity on the attraction of organic forma¬ 
tion—or urge the vital forces without pushing them beyond 
a certain degree of intensity, enlarge the boundaries and 
rectify reason by imparting to it force; and, in its turn, 
reason comes in compensation, rectifies, restores equilibrium 
to the passions. 

Thus every part of our moral and physical nature recip¬ 
rocally acts for the mutual good, and benefit of the whole:— 
All the organic forces come in aid of the moral, the moral, 
in aid of the organic; and, in our economy operate for 
mutual support. Man is an assemblage of organs, faculties 
—a geometrical quantity in the universe—every part recip¬ 
rocally essential, useful to every other part. Every sense, 
idea, passion, feeling, faculty; every bone, tendon, muscle, 
nerve—all the organic forms with their separate properties 
—have their appropriate place, combine in their great action 
for conservation as to what is without, and for one another’s 
use and good. The pure idea of man, moral and physical, is 
that of the calculation of force against force, the end, to 
secure their equipoise. In this respect with all animal 
existences, he is purely geometrical in his framework, and, 
in his statical relations, differs not from the bodies in space 
—from all anorganic bodies. 

Embarked on the inland sea of time, such is man in na¬ 
ture—man on his way to his Creator; and he will go up to 


460 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


be reviewed in the totality of what he is—judged, rewarded 
by the acts of his reason, passions, impressed through his 
will on the muscles, bones; or “ according to the deeds done 
in the body.” 

But to proceed—The passions, as intimated, exhibit a 
great variety of shades, and vary greatly in the kind, as in 
the impetuosity of the force, they expand upon the living 
tissues. Hence they have many names, and admit of several 
classes, as inclinations, affections, propensities, appetites, 
wants, sentiments. 

They all disturb the equilibrium of the great function of 
innervation, and radiate their force on special organs. Some 
radiate simply, and suspend more or less completely the 
living action in the balance of the organs, they do not di¬ 
rectly affect, as grief, terror, despair. Others affect the tis¬ 
sues in relation, and then expand the vital energy through 
all the organs, as pleasure, joy. Passions of either physio¬ 
logical character in the excess of violence, by the heavy 
blows they strike on the tissues in relation, may break the 
general unity of the functions, and as we have noticed, 
already, produce instant death. History shows, those, which 
have the greatest power to expand the general life, have 
killed in this way the most frequently. Daubenton could 
not survive the pleasure he felt, in being called to preside 
over the Senate. Sophocles receiving a crown, which had 
been adjudged to him, died amid the applauding shouts of 
the multitude. Our patriot Jefferson expired the 4th of July, 
the emotions inseparable from this day in our history, burst¬ 
ing in upon him. Under the joy of obtaining his liberty 
from Louis XIV, Fouquet died immediately; Leibnitz’s fair 
relation, on opening a chest of gold bequeathed by her uncle; 
Chilo and Diagoras of Rhodes, on beholding their sons crown¬ 
ed at the Olympic Games; the Spartan and Roman mothers, 
on seeing their sons return from the battles of Cannae and 
Thrasymenus, where it was understood, they had fallen. 

The sad passions ordinarily destroy more slowly by bring¬ 
ing on hypertrophy, and disorganizing phlogosis of the 
organs, on which they concentrate their force. 


PASSIONS—PHYSIOLOGY OF. 


461 


It was the ambition of the Stoic philosophy to conquer 
and subdue the passions; of the Peripatetic, to honor them; 
of the Epicurean, to derive enjoyment from their rational 
cultivation. It is strange that early Christianity did not 
favor the Stoic in preference to the Peripatetic creed. But 
after all the rectifications of reason; after all the lights, 
which have been shed on the passions; and the care of Hea¬ 
ven, it is still mournfully true— 

—Vide meliora proboque ; 

Deteriora sequor. 


SECTION II. 

\ ' 

PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PASSIONS. 

M any good philosophers have erected the phrenic or epi¬ 
gastric centre into a sort of sensorium for the passions. 
Already we have noticed, all the facts of psychologic physi¬ 
ology seem to point to the cerebrum as the sole seat of the 
mental phenomena. 

It appears to me the whole phenomena of this phrenic 
centre, constituted by the trisplanchnic or ganglionic ner¬ 
vous system, which, it has been thought, entitles it to he re¬ 
garded as a distinct seat of mental operations, may thus be 
succinctly stated. An object of pity is presented. Let it be 
the 

“ Poor old man. 

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door; 

Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span.” 

The eye gazes on the shrunken, wasted form, and on the 
garments of decent, virtuous poverty, which partially cover 
it against the action of the piercing winds. 

But it is only the tattered garments, the pale, shrunken 
visage, the wasted, shriveled, tottering form—the physical* 
man—painted on the retina, which the eye sees:—sees 
through the mind’s eccentric reaction upon it, and in conse¬ 
quence of the picture or impression being made. And were 
there no other senses, but the eyes, and those like them, the 


39 


462 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


mind could perceive nothing more. All objects would indis¬ 
criminately be presented to it in a relation or light purely 
physical. 

But while the mind, in this case, reacts upon the eye, in con¬ 
sequence of the impression transmitted to the intracranial 
focus, and sees the physical man, it likewise, by a law of the 
organism, reacts synchronously upon the organsunder the epi¬ 
gastric centre, affects them for perception, as the eye is affected 
for vision, and sees the moral man. This last reaction of the 
mind produces a fulness, a vital turgescence of these organs 
—lavishes innervation upon them ; and there is a lively sen¬ 
sation felt in this centre, as there is in the eye beholding. 
The mind perceives by this centre, as by the eye. The only 
difference is, outward causes affect the external senses for 
perception, while the mind itself affects the internal organs. 

The mind thus, by its reaction stimulating, arousing to 
activity the epigastric centre, manifested by this vital tur¬ 
gescence, effect of over-innervation, sees the holes in his 
worn-out garments; feels the winds blow that benumb him; 
tastes his coarse, unsavory food ; sits by his cold fire ; lies on 
his hard bed ; writhes under the neglects, repulses, frowns, 
scoffs, he has received from hard-heartedness; contemplates 
his flesh wasted from age, disease, and hard living; his 
strength gone before he has reached the grave, and wants 
pressing him hard—beholds in him the moral man, the man 
common to all the species. 

Let any one interrogate himself—the eyes, the external 
senses, are incapable of such noble, sublime vision. Through 
the mind’s reaction on their impressions, they only perceive 
the physical qualities, attributes of material objects. They 
look at man as at other corporeal forms; see his size, tangi¬ 
ble figure, complexion. It is the internal organs, stimulated 
through the mind’s reaction upon them, which are the in¬ 
struments of this great moral vision—which behold what 
have nor color, length, nor breadth; but will endure the 
separate elements of his immortal nature. 

May I be forgiven. I delight to contemplate this emotion 
of pity, on which we have touched. It unites us to all sen¬ 
tient beings; extends to all ranks of intelligence; and pro- 


PASSIONS—PHYSIOLOGY OF. 


463 


claims a moral nature in all. What an immense society it 
forms, in which man in all his generations, constitutes only 
a single member, individual! 

Like a lone star, it shone lono* on the earth with a feeble, 

doubtful light. Often it scarcely dared to speak, or urge its 

precepts. They perished in the bosoms where they sprung; 

and often its voice was forbid to be heard. Wars bloody 

•/ 

and cruel raged long; homicidal engines and dungeons were 
constructed ; cruelty became an occupation, and the groans 
of the sorrowing, the depressed, an idle blast of wind. In 
aid of the wronged pity consigned to mortal bosoms, Pity 
descended from Heaven in bodily shape. It spoke with 
authority. It expanded a soft and beautiful light. In this 
light the ambitions, glory of men dropped to the dust. In 
this lignt men maddened. Lazarus became more noble 
than the war-bearing Alexander, and all the Caesars; “a cup 
of cold water,” a piece of bread, things of more brilliant, 
magnificent titles, than the thrones or sceptres of sovereigns. 

But to our inquiry. It is evident, when an object im¬ 
presses any of our senses, we are not conscious of it, until 
the mind, as I may say, visits the sense affected in the reac¬ 
tion of its material organ. If the object be calculated to 
awaken emotion, as the poor octogenarian above, the ence¬ 
phalon, under the influence of the mind, directs one move¬ 
ment to tiie sense affected, by which the object is physically 
felt, and, at the same time, another to the epigastric centre, 
by which it is felt morally. 

I cannot discover any thing more in the facts of this me¬ 
chanism. In the busy scene around us, a thousand stimu¬ 
lations constantly act on our senses ineffectually, as the 
ticking of the clock, the ringing of bells. They are only 
perceived, when the eccentric reaction reaches the actuated 
sense or senses. Very often, too, it happens, objects capable 
of awakening emotion, are perceived, when this same reac¬ 
tion does not reach the epigastric centre, or affects it so 
feebly, that they are not morally perceived. This will 
more frequently happen in great cities, where such objects 
are more numerous. 


464 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


The difference, then, as already between physical and 
moral perception is, in the one case, the perceptiferous 
movement begins in the external senses, and is completed 
by the reaction of the central organ on these senses, while 
in the other, this reaction is double. Besides the one to the 
operative senses, there is, at the same time, one transmitted 
to the epigastric centre, which affects it in the same manner 
for moral, as external objects do these senses, for physical 
sensations. 

The encephalon, therefore, is the sole seat of the under¬ 
standing, the epigastrium or tissues of the ganglioso-abdo- 
minal centre , acting in the place, and supplying the function 
of an organ of sense. To these tissues, as to the seats of all 
the other senses, already noticed, the mind refers the sensa¬ 
tion, which consigns them to the rank here given—the rank 
of senses. 

The order of nature here is peculiarly beautiful. It is 
here in this centre all our moral wants are felt; and by it 
are read out to the mind in the great public auditory of the 
common sensory. And it is here too in us are felt the same 
wants of all others, read out in the same auditory. Here 
they are felt in this prodigious medullary instrument which 
urges the attraction, that organizes, impresses the morpho¬ 
logic characters on the tissues, fights against death—impels 
by its sole force all nutrition, life.—Felt at the very home 
of our own wants, producing vital congestions in the subor¬ 
dinated organs; choking the breath; filling the heart to 
breaking; wringing, clapping the hands; pouring out the 
tears. If nature had no other tongues, or voice, these were 
sufficient for men to know—they were formed for mutual 
support, to feel for one another, and participate in a common 
destiny—brotherhood. 

It is here in the elaboratory of this internal, nervous organ, 
nature carries on, displays her marvellous alchemy;—that 
she prepares the chaste fire, which burns in the maiden’s 
blush; the ice, which freezes in terror; the blight, that 
wrinkles and withers in scorn; the meteors, wffiich flash and 
dazzle in eloquence:—It is here she forges the hot flames, 


PASSIONS—PHYSIOLOGY OF. 


465 


which consume the lover, waste the politician, drive the 
warrior against the point of the enemy’s sword ;—that she 
weaves for despair the raven-colored habiliments; distils the 
sweet delusions of hope veiling sorrow in moonlight; that 
she draws forth the sighs, and all the tears to fill the cup of 
grief. 

In consequence of the fulness, painful distensions, the 
passions cause in the organs co-ordinated with the nutritive, 
nervous system, it becomes a pleasure “ to feel for another’s 
woe;” to uphold under the weight of affliction ; exercise 
pity, charity, be tender, merciful, forgiving;—actions, senti¬ 
ments sanctioned, recommended by Christianity—stars in 
the clouded firmament of human nature shedding a beamy 
light;—actions, sentiments, which the advancing sciences 
are fast tending to establish as the only true philosophy in 
the world—the ripe fruit of civilization perfected. 

We see, therefore, the reason of the law so unprofound able 
at first, by which the mind, beholding humanity suffering, 
explodes, lavishes the sensorial power on the internal organs 
paining, disordering their functions. It is to compel us to 
cut loose the purse-strings in sight of the wretchedness of 
poverty ; to put our hands softly under the head bowed by 
the weight of merciless affliction, grief, accumulated ills.— 
It is the voice of the Almighty articulated through these 
organs, equalizing the good he bestows, illuminating reason 
on the ways of his Providence. 

When we obey this voice, our laboring, suffering organs, 
styled sacredly “ the bowels of mercy , compassion ,” soon re¬ 
gain equilibrium ; and a placid tranquillity, with a sense of 
ease, pleasure, steals upon us. None can get beyond the 
reach of this law, except by constantly violating it, like 
Nero, who to amuse for an hour the hungry furies, which 
cmawed him, could set Rome on fire. 

It is not only in the perception of objects competent to 
stimulate emotion, that the reaction of the mind is felt on 
the epigastrium in the transmission of the nervous power, 
but likewise, in the recollection or conception of them. The 
emotions attendant on conception, after they have had time 

39* 


466 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


to become illuminated by imagination, are frequently more 
vehement. Thus, often the want of courtesy, or a slight 
insult offered, which passed for nothing at the time, when 
fancy has flung upon it the light of her magic lantern, be¬ 
comes a matter of rage and revenge. 

It is this power of fancy over our emotions, accompanying 
the perception and conception of things, which engenders 
the soft and tender light of time;—the light in which we 
behold the relics, the tombs of our ancestors; the monuments, 
arts, letters, labors, remains of antiquity. When we first 
begin to read the languages of early men, it is in this light 
of the heart we behold them; by day, by the dim taper at 
night, wet with our tears the pages, which record their 
doings. It was by this calm and lachrymal light, in royal 
sports, the Grecians celebrated the ashes of Patroclus; that 
the pious iEneas instituted games to honor the tomb of his 
father Anchises, and, in the trumpet-blast of eternal fame, 
sent to endless posterity his beloved name. 

This light consecrates, hallows, whatever it touches, and 
expands round it a gloomy joy. Thus a spot, where a fellow¬ 
being has been laid, or long since visited by a friend, has 
the power of inspiring this peculiar sense, and imparting 
a special value. Madame de Stael visiting Rome, went 
to the tomb of Metulla, when this inspiration called forth, 
instantly, the most tender and brilliant touches of elo¬ 
quence, in the eulogium she composed on the spot. Davy 
seated on the ruins of Psestum, Yolney, and Chateaubriand 
on those of Athens, Sparta, and Carthage, under its power 
produced the most perfect form, the living beauty of 
thought, in the reflections they made. Having ascended 
in Egypt the great, pyramid of the plain, “here where I 
sit, on this very stone,” cries Savary in his heart’s fuluess, 
“sat Strabo, nineteen hundred years ago. Here I behold, 
in the description he has left, now before my eyes, that 
he saw the very same things which I see.” 

It is in this tender light of time—the light of the heart, 
animated by the sweet touches, delicious tints of i mao-mat ion 

O' 

we contemplate Iphigenia, Cassandra, Laura, Eloiza, Bea- 


PASSIONS—PHYSIOLOGY OF. 


467 


trice, Eleonora—all the fair human forms of fiction and 
reality which catch the breath of the same life in all ages, 
and inspire admiration, pity, and sorrow. Its full value can 
only be appreciated by great geniuses, as Shakspeare and 
Boileau. Men, however, without ability, by its sole power, 
frequently procure interest for their w r orks. Finally, it is 
this light, which lends to solitude a substantial part of its 
charms; to which Zimmerman, St. Pierre, Fenelon, and 
Rousseau, have imparted such deep interest in their writings. 

But it some of the passions expand the vital movement to 
the excess of producing death more or less suddenly;—if 
some, through the local inflammations of the tissues on which 
they fall, conduct slowly, burn life gradually away, to the 
cold edge of the sepulchre;—if some, through their mild 
organic influences, exalt reason, imagination; fill the soul 
with tenderness, pity, commiseration; with the gloomy, 
mournful joy of solitude, antiquities, nostalgia pouring out 
the tears; radiate the bright light of hope, or darkness of 
despair;—finally, if some of the passions are manifested by 
concentrating, and maintaining the nutritive blood on the 
epigastric organs causing cerebral asthenia tending to atro¬ 
phia , thus weakening, deranging reason, there are others, as 
anger, revenge, through their sudden action on the heart, 
cause this same blood to rebound back in excess into the 
midst of the brain, maddening reason, and all the intellectual 
faculties. The blood transmitted, accumulated suddenly in 
the cerebrum , the sensorial power or nervous agent is abun¬ 
dantly evolved to excite and sustain voluntary, muscular 
movements. The whole organism, charged now with this 
explosive, energetic power, the eyes flash, the muscles con¬ 
tract, the fists clench, the teeth strike, the blood vibrates 
rapidly in the face alternating the color. Hypersthenic 
spasmodic, abnormal phenomena, are developed. Thus na¬ 
ture, in the rage of anger, hatred, wrath, yields the force of 
revenge—force, which gives to the voluntary muscles pre¬ 
ternatural strength and activity in combat. This same rage 
is manifested in animals, by the contractions of their skin, 
the erections of their bristles, feathers, crests on their head; 
and by the threatening motion of the martial arms of nature. 



468 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


Of all our emotions, sexual love, perhaps, is the most 
complex; and exhibits the greatest variety in its physiology, 
psychology, and pathologic phenomena. It has figured most 
in the world. Having consigned to it the duration of the 
species, nature has armed it with prodigious, energetic 
force. According to the Greeks, all antiquity, it can bend 
all mortal and immortal powers except the Fates, and reigns 
in the Olympian seats, as on the earth. If it burns in human 
bosoms, it can reduce the world-shaking Jove to an humble 
suppliant at the feet of beauty, snatch the thunderbolts from 
his hands, and an infant child can sport with them. 

A philosophic account of the passions with all their shades; 
their influence on the living economy; comparative estimate 
of their moral forces, modified by country, climate, civiliza¬ 
tion, displayed in the reality, as now in romance and civil 
history, would be inestimable. 

Philosophers, who study them merely abstractly, or with¬ 
out the knowledge of their dependence upon the influences 
of the organism, differ very much as to the display of their 
mechanism. 

A. Smith* supposes, in the exercise of our sympathies, 
we go out of ourselves, take possession of other persons, and 
thus feel for their infirmities as for our own. It is true, we 
feel for others in a measure as for ourselves; and all human 
emotions, except in callous hearts, are truly contagious, or 
have an energetic tendency to expand their movement. 
This going out of ourselves, however, of Dr. A. Smith, can 
only be the state of the organs and functions I have described, 
responding to the common sensory when excited by objects 
of commiseration, or objects calculated to stimulate emotions. 

Many others, who are merely philosophers, offer very 
different accounts of the phenomena mental and moral over 
which we have just passed. St. Augustin resolves all our 
emotions into the perception of the order and design of na¬ 
ture. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Abbe Winkleman, Hogarth, 
provide for them special senses. M. Diderot refers them to 
some great law of “the moral constitution,” or to our per- 

* Theory of Moral Sentiments. 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 


469 


ception of relation; Hume and Bentham, to our sense of 
utility, and Mr. Alison, to “a train of thought,” animated 
by imagination, which differs not very fundamentally from 
Lord Karnes. 

The true knowledge of physical man lies in his structure 
—is to be sought for in its general and special relations, 
subordinations; in the conditions of health, temperament; 
in the changes of disease, ages; in the reciprocal dependence, 
influence, movements—unity of his mental and organic con¬ 
stitutions. The true knowledge of man, both moral and 
physical, can only be sought for wfith success, in the philo¬ 
sophy of his organic formation, and Book of Heaven. His 
passions are the outward vestments, in which his mind ap¬ 
pears—shades impressed upon it by the modifications of the 
nutritive portion of his nervous tissue, by special organs, and 
must vary as these organs, his general constitution, varies. 
Accordingly, like every thing sublunar, the passions are 
subject to the power of change. Country, climate, locality, 
health, disease, age, food, avocation, temperament, education 
—must have their influence. In the same individual, some 
are developed sooner, some later; and die, disappear in the 
same proportions. But we cannot touch on these interesting 
topics, and of the individual passions, must content ourselves 
with treating only a single one. 

SECTION III. 

PASSION OF THEOSOPHY-CULTUS NUMENIS-OR RELIGION. 

Man has not been left without a force of central movement. 
By a constant, progressive motion, he is borne onward. Fu¬ 
turity presents to him two great foci, where burns the wrath 
or the love of the common Creator, as the terminus of this 
motion. The impetus of religion bears him to the seat of 
the Divine love, of ineffable pleasures;—of rebellion, diso¬ 
bedience, to the sojourn of the Divine anger, of endless 
wretchedness. 


470 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


ARTICLE I. 

Philosophy of religion. 

Religion, derived by Servius from religando , restraining, 
binding , is compendiously, the admiration and love of God. 
In all its modifications, love is a passion of some energy. 
When violent, it tends to exaggerate, to exalt unduly the 
values, excellences of the objects on which it falls. This 
quality of love is evidenced by the labors of many archeolo¬ 
gists, who place the remains of classic antiquity—their arts, 
sciences, letters, improvements, civilization—upon a level, or 
above those of the actual epoch. It is very manifest in the 
love nature formed for the union of the sexes. Thus, for 
instance, he who loves ardently and tenderly, sees nought 
in her who is the object of his passion, but beauty and 
perfection—the qualities which please, assimilate her to 
the higher order of other spheres. Her idea lives con¬ 
stantly with him, penetrates all his sensations, expands a 
new light, radiates her beauty, perfections, on inanimate ob¬ 
jects; and nature, in consequence, presents to him a more 
sweet and smiling aspect. Cold repulses, neglects, success¬ 
ful rivalry, time, waste and dissipate the confusion of the epi¬ 
gastric and cerebral functions. He beholds her again, and. 
estimates her by the pure light of the senses. But with all 
that makes her pleasing, he is astonished at his former con¬ 
ceptions—at the meteorization of his soul, and the bright 
coruscations which flashed upon it, the mechanism of which 
I have already explained. Accordingly, the same objects, 
when seen by the light of the heart and by the light of the 
external senses, must show in very different proportions. 

With the love of life, nature has consecrated to our affec¬ 
tion whatever tends to its welfare, and continuation. Love 
therefore, may be defined, the primordial, active anion , ten - 
dency of our mind to all objects, whose forces, as the means, 
operate to the duration and well-being of our existence. Our 
love is always in proportion to the excess or defect of the 
conservative action of these objects. All other loves flow 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 


471 


irom the original love of life. This love, I may say, was the 
governing principle in the original theory of human and 
animal formation ; since, in place of this love, had that of 
annihilation been given, all creatures, by the active forces 
they wield, could, and would have sought instantaneous ex¬ 
tinction ; and suspended, ah origine , the progress of genera¬ 
tions in all species. But by this love left free to act, they 
exert, balance their forces against their world; and measure 
out a duration of existence varied in all—accomplish the end 
of their first idea. 

But if, in the scale of love, all objects librate in proportion 
to their tendencies to maintain and perpetuate existence, the 
Supreme Being, who is the original giver, arbiter, perpetuator 
of lite, who is infinitely exalted above all, perfect in the con¬ 
servative force , must be infinitely the most admirable and 
lovely of all.—And since beauty, excellence, perfection, 
form the media, through which love acts on objects, he must 
likewise, above all, be infinitely the most beautiful, excel¬ 
lent, and perfect. 

According to the fundamental principles, therefore, upon 
which love operates, through the love of life he has given 
us, by his beauty, life-conservative power, by all his quali¬ 
ties, he must stimulate, challenge the supreme love of man; 
must concentrate upon himself a balance of admiration and 
love, which outweighs infinitely all that can be excited by, 
and lavished upon, the objects he has created. This is ne¬ 
cessarily so, since these objects are only the means, and are 
subaltern, secondary in their action in the perpetuation of 
the life, of which man has the innate love—love, which is 
the primordial element of all religion. And if he does not 

t 

so admire and love his Divine Creator, it is perpetual, abso¬ 
lute demonstration to the sceptic, infidel, forlorn ! that the 
harmony of the moral universe has been temporarily blot¬ 
ted ; and that the love mortals cherish in their bosoms is a 
flower which has sickened and faded; unworthy, and dis- 
proportioned to its object. 

If contrarily our species had been formed with the horror, 
hatred of life, or love of annihilation, and constitutionally 


472 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


restrained from gratifying this love or from universal sui¬ 
cide, it is manifest they would fly from whatever had a ten¬ 
dency to cherish and perpetuate this life; and would love, 
be attracted by whatever had the power of destroying it. 
In such an order of human nature, above all the objects 
of the universe, the Giver of this life, cceteris paribus, would 
be the most consummately ugly, repulsive, and hateful; and 
in place of love, madness, hatred, and anger toward him 
would have constituted all religion. 

Accordingly, the innate love of life, which arrays the Di¬ 
vine Being with ineffable perfections, attractions, analyzes 
as the first principle in which religion begins; and “eternal 
life” is the reward, brilliant crown, it holds up to its vota¬ 
ries in scenographic Heaven. To intelligences like we, 
doomed to the desolations of temporary death, what reward 
could be so sweet, so appropriate; could so gratify this 
ardent, pre-existent love of life diffused at first through our 
dust? life, which we cherish on the course of time, and grasp 
after dying;—life made perpetual in futurity—“ eternal life ” 
—rescued from the devastations, spoliations of time and the 
world, alimented by the love of God, Heaven, permanent in 
immovable being? The wickedness of mortals is insanity ! 
their disobedience, rebellion—blasphemy, outrage on them¬ 
selves ! 

But it is not simply the love of life we prize; but life in 
union with happiness. Happiness is the effect of the action 
of good on life. Good may be defined, the totality of the 
conservative force of life. This force to us organic, exists 
diffused throughout the visible world, but has its puncium 
saliens in the Divinity. Love, I have said, is the active ten¬ 
dency of our mind toward objects which possess this force; 
beauty is the manner of our beholding them; religion is our 
love of God—or tendency of our mind to him—founded on 
the innate love of life; God, therefore, who dispenses the 
conservative lorce of life, is love, beauty, and goodness; and 
the action of the love of religion is reciprocal—holy, blissful 
idea! 

In the last elements to which we can thus reduce the 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 


473 


idea ot religion, I cannot see any thing beside. This rapid 
reduction shows our race w r as formed for religion—formed 
to tend to the love from which they first came—nor can we 
tell how the “forbidden fruit” could ever have been tasted, 
or loss of Eden caused. In the explorable universe, we 
know no similar example—know no order of being beside, 
which has violated its first motion, and become dynamically 
wrong. The beautiful children purely material of the same 
universal Father, who wander, and cry after him in space, 
still appear to follow in the same footsteps he first appointed; 
and reach after him in all their far-shooting rays. The 
earth we tread, visible mother of our organic being, is 
one of these, which follow in the direction first impressed. 
Is it because we are less material than they, we have sick¬ 
ened in the first motion; become undynamical; lost our 
proportions, and our way in the universe—have fallen into 
the tangent of sin; sent up a smoke before our eyes to 
Heaven; and now weep in the gloom we have made? But 
if we show our being- wrecked on the coast of time, and are 
tending wrong, Christianity makes us dynamically right to 
play forward through eternal duration after; and to sin now, 
constitutes the gitilt double . Such contemplations, however, 
belong to an order of conception far above our mind’s force. 

But how can I sinful, decent, expatiate on the holy philo¬ 
sophy of religion, which is the philosophy of our love of 
God, love blemished, violated, and his reciprocal love!— 
love forfeited by disobedience. • The philosophy of Christi¬ 
anity cheerful, prospectful, is the philosophy of this love 
restored. But for this restoration, man ought ever to have 
continued dumb in the Divine Omnipresence; but now his 
gratitude has a right to be vocal, to expatiate over the field 
religion occupies; and he again can look toward his Creator; 
feel himself love, and be loved. 

The qualities, properties of the Divine Being, manifestable 
to the reason of a contemplative mortal, stimulate all the 
great and sublime emotions of his nature; and make his heart 
speak. Is it antiquities, that have charms for him?—The 
lonely rock, which stands in the woodlands where he passes, 

40 


474 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


has a voice to call to him. and a bearing that vibrates on his 
soul. “Ah !” he cries, “the rage of how many seasons, of 
how many centuries has this rock withstood! Time gnaws 
on it in vain. Since it has been here, how many of my 
race have needed sepulchres; how many generations, nations, 
empires, have been entombed in the gulf of time!—the 
lustre of beauty, the brightness of glory, have faded; the 
noise of fame quieted; eternal recollections, become obli¬ 
vions ! The loneliness, darkness of years, the noiselessness 
of desolation rest upon it. The lone survivor of what has 
been, it is the witness of what has perished of the world— 
of its devastations, changes. The ruins it has seen, it has 
passed through, sanctify, consecrate it holy; and with awe 
and veneration, press it upon his heart. The place of its 
presence is religious, holy.” 

But it rests on ruins itself—the ruins of what existed 
before it. O, old of the old ! It carries him back to the 
chaos of the world, and plunges him into the abyss of mate¬ 
rial nothingness. But He! who placed it here in these 
woodlands!—oh! The infinity, antiquity, of Jehovah smite 
him, and shrink the volume of all time, and the world into 
an invisible speck. The oldest moments of time engraven 
on this rock, are the same, as if they had just been; the 
rays of the light of the first day of the world, tender and 
juicy as the living grass, that streams in the wind.—The 
age so great, that nothing after can ever become old. All 
antiquity is but an affair of the present hour; the desolations 
of the world, but the course of nature, the changes which 
happen in this hour. O abyss of antiquity, Jehovah! eternal 
endlessness backwards—forwards! Purity! holiness! praise 
—fear—homage! O deep, dark sea of the Almighty bot¬ 
tomless! where no bright wheel of matter ever turned, no 
year ever dipped the supple wing, or wrecks of time are 
found!—monumentless! unshapen in thought! nameless. 

But his heart, as his understanding, is too weak for the 
emotions of this last conception. The touch of the Infinite 
One to his intelligence, is sublime and fearful, awakening 
solemn adoration. 


PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 


475 


In place of antiquities, is it longevity and happiness he 
admires—God alone holds the disposable treasure of all life 
and happiness. Do riches, glory, beauty, grandeur, magni¬ 
ficence attract him? Infinite space is the store-house of 
wealth, and the grandeur and glory of the world can only 
come from pre-existent grandeur, glory ;—and if, as I have 
said, the love of all earthly objects tend to exaggerate their 
excellences, values, by his love and admiration he can never 
reach, equal the perfections of God, whom we most reason¬ 
ably are commanded to love with all our soul , might and 
strength. 

The passion, sentiment of religion excites too the epigas¬ 
tric functions, but never shocks the vital equilibrium, or 
destroys by acute or slow wasting irritations. By its mild 
and equable excitements, it exalts, dignifies reason; cools, 
softens the friction of the other passions, that frets away 
vitality; and tends essentially to perpetual health and lon¬ 
gevity.— Religion physiologic restrains the fierce forces 
which totter in ascending the steep of life; and by a steady 
motion, lets us down safely into the tomb, and the other 
world. 

A mortal truly loving God, the soft light of his heart radi¬ 
ates out on the landscape of the world; and it shows to him 
with sweeter, more lovely attractions. The Divine Omni¬ 
presence animates, imparts a special value to all objects his 
senses perceive. The idea of God, the idea of his heart, 
lives in his soul; smoothens the ruggedness of calamity, 
affliction; and snatches the sharp arrow from the bow of 
death. He has truly the Malebranchian vision—sees, enjoys 
all things in God. The Divine Omnipresence, momentarily 
conscious of us, which we so little appreciate, think of, com' 
forts him. It is truly consolation. “Ah'!” cries a celebrated 
sea traveller, his heart breaking,—“ in these regions so re¬ 
mote from all human habitation, what mean these new skies 
above my head, and these big bright stars, that glisten so 
about the austral pole; on which the eye of no man before 
mine ever fell!—and these rocky shores, these lonely wastes 
so wild, so frightful, never pressed before by human feet— 


476 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


isolated from all that is of man, that looks of man! But the 
God of Europe is the God of these solitudes, of these skies, 
and these stars. He is all that I see, that I know here.” 

ARTICLE II. 

Religion civil , or in relation to the Species. 

The characters of the Divine Being, as we have just seen, 
fill the soul of man with amazement, wonder! and strike his 
heart with holy awe and veneration. He is naturally, essen¬ 
tially adorable, glorifiable—causes homage. Religion, ac¬ 
cordingly, is the most sublime, as it is the most sweet and 
charming sentiment of our nature. All history shows, it has 
been coeval with the origin of all people, society. Judaism, 
Egyptian, Grecian, Roman polytheism, Christianity, Foh- 
ism, Islamism; the worship of Woden, Brahma, Ormuzd or 
Oromasdes, Baal; are the forms, in which it has appeared 
in its greatest majesty, and shone with the most brilliancy 
and glory on the world. 

Islamism, fostered by the climate and genius of Arabia, 
robbed from Christianity all its worth and beauty; and rose 
in blood by the eloquence and military prowess of its cun¬ 
ning and deceitful founder. It is due to mankind, it should 
go down behind the red banner of war its winding sheet; 
and the political aspects of the actual world so portend it. 

Christianity sprung from the love, the reason of God; all 
other religions, from the reason, imaginations of men. It 
was the religion of the Jews, among the most ancient by 
enlightened people on earth; it has ever since existed only 
among the most enlightened nations—it is a civilized reli¬ 
gion. Its abstract truths are of a philosophy the most vast 
and sublime, expressed in language the most elegant and 
beautiful, demanding for their comprehension high intel¬ 
lectual powers. Its precepts are commentaries on things, 
which strike alike the common practical sense of men. It 
is emphatically the religion of the Caucasian or white race, 
among whom it first appeared. All other races or colors of 
existing men have, always have had, religions more or less 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


477 


peculiar to themselves, accommodated to their genius, cir¬ 
cumstances, to which all historical records concur in testi¬ 
mony. These religions, if we may exclude that of the 
Chinese, have figured but little in history; and figured prin¬ 
cipally as matters of mere curiosity. The people to whom 
they appertain never elevate their reflections, but persevere 
in barbarism, and never achieve any thing worthy of the 
remembrance of future generations. 

All philosophers bestow on this Caucasian branch of our 
species a decided superiority over the others—place it at the 
top of intelligence in the scale of zoologic man. This supe¬ 
riority arises from the comparatively more perfect organiza¬ 
tion of the pneumatic organ, the more happy conformation 
of the nervous system, and general structure, the facial angle 
being from 85° to 90°. 

If the whole race is susceptible of well-marked divisions, 
time has stamped on the Caucasian variety itself several 
distinctive peculiarities. History finds it, as the others, oc¬ 
cupying a principal sojourn in the early civil divisions of 
the earth. This sojourn comprehends Europe, Asia Minor, 
Arabia, Persia, India to the Ganges, and Africa to Mauri¬ 
tania. It is composed, according to M. Yirey, “ of four great 
branches or primitive families.” These families, in the sequel 
of ages, formed many great nations, w 7 ho have established 
many mighty empires; and preserved each their original 
language, manners, religion ; and carried them with them 
into the countries where they emigrated, or established do¬ 
minion by conquest. 

The first family is that of the Arabs, which comprehends 
the Bedouins or Arabs of the desert, the Hebrews, Syrians, 
Chaldeans, Druses, and other people of Liban ; the Egypti¬ 
ans, Phoenicians, Abyssinians, the Maures, Morocains of 
Boreal Africa. 

The Hindoos on this side the Ganges compose the second 
branch—the people of Bengal, the Coromandel coast, of the 
o-reat Moo-ul, the Malebarians, the Banians, inhabitants of 

to to 7 

Candahar, of Calcutta. 

The Scythians and European Tartars, more modern, 

40* 


478 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


compose the third branch, in which are to be included the 
nations which swarm at the feet of Caucasus, about the 
shores of the Caspian Sea, many nomades; the Circassians, 
Georgians. The Parthians, Affghans, Cossacks, Usbecks, 
Muscovites, the'Turks descended from Oygours and other 
Tartars, Huns, Ostrogoths, Bulgarians, belong to this fa¬ 
mily. 

All the Celtic or Teutonic families, all purely European, 
with the two great branches, the boreal and the meridional, 
constitute the fourth and last division of this great Caucasian 
family. 

The very names of these people are the names of history 
—of great events. It is they from all antiquity, who have 
hurled over the earth the hot thunderbolt of war; and agi¬ 
tated the affairs of this world. Restless, fiery spirits! it is 
they who have built cities, empires, kingdoms, thrones, and 
destroyed them.—Who pull the sun of civilization out of 
the horizon of the world, and set it up again. Who at once 
are the fathers, and the descendants of the Alexanders, the 
Csesars, Attilas, Alarics; the Othmans, Amuraths, Tamer- 
lanes, Washingtons, Bajazets, Buonapartes, Newtons, Mil- 
tons, Lockes, that appear, and become visible forever from 
the high hill of future ages. They scar deep the earth where 
they sojourn, and leave durable monuments behind. The 
other varieties of men, are the olive-colored, the Ethiopian 
with their modifications, who continue in the eternal slum¬ 
ber of their mental faculties; and, in the revolutions of their 
generations, leave little other than their bones behind them. 
Their countries continue a wilderness. 

It is, then, not from mere opinion, but from facts, that phi¬ 
losophers have given to the white race, shot off into the 
families I have mentioned in the early annals, the decided 
superiority of intelligence—superiority which, besides the 
facts of history, is evidenced by the greater excellence of 
organization. According to these facts, it is from this race 
solely have originated all the great arts, sciences, inventions, 
and improvements, which establish dominion over the laws 
of nature in favor of civilization and public happiness. 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


479 


It it be not as I say, to mention no more, where are the 
records, archives, monuments, of the black and olive-co¬ 
lored men, which show the treasures of their genius, their 
intellectual achievements? What does posterity owe them? 
What have they done worthy of a name? Where are their 
time-honored ? 

During the thousands of years past, the negro has sat 
under the shade of the palms, by the side of the cool rivers 
of his meridional country, which wind under the branches 
of trees laden forever with delicious fruits;—sat where 
nature pours the most varied, sweet inspiration, wooing to 
reflection; and still he is the grossest savage, and in his 
thoughts, his manners, calls brutes his near kin. 

Contemplate now ancient Egypt in the same land, occu¬ 
pied at the same time by a branch of the Caucasian stock, 
his neighbors. Think of the labors, the eternal monuments 
of thought and reflection left:—the Zodiac, in which since 
the sun and all his planets have travelled :—seas excavated 
in the dry sand, rolling w T aves built to facilitate commerce: 
mighty empires, pyramids, temples, other immortal w r orks 
of art. Thought cannot know, feel such thought without 
approaching to sacred homage. 

And the red man, our Aboriginal, stem of the Olive race, 
who roamed for centuries this country in which I live, the 
traces of whose footsteps are scarcely erased on the very 
spot, where I now sit and write:—This beautiful country! 
amid the tops of whose majestic oaks and poplars the Auso- 
nian breezes have ever played, fanning the heat of summer: 
Trees, whose roots sink deep amid weaving grass and clus¬ 
tering flowers:—This country ! which lifts up its undulat¬ 
ing surfaces to drink the light, mother of sweet fruits and 
colored dowers; whose limpid streams wind through sunny 
hills down the shade-dark valley and song of birds—resorts, 
ancient dwellings of Hygeia—the rolling waters falling 
everywhere softly on the ear tempting rich mellow thought 
and contemplation: Country! — whose extensive valleys 
afford shelter for herds and wild beasts against the darting 
rays of summer; in the deep cerulean curve of whose sky 


480 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


the moon looks so rich and beautiful; behind whose amber 
clouds the golden sun goes down; and the blue tops of 
whose mountains inspire sacred awe pointing to the palaces 
above:—The red man I say—where are his hoary-headed, 
who survive all changes of the w r orld immortalized by re¬ 
flection? Where are the proud works of his hands? What 
are the venerable monuments, antiquities, he has left ? Some 
pointed flints, fragments of coarse pottery ; mounds of earth; 
heaps of stone piled on his bones; the country virgin as 
from the hands of nature, are these monuments. His ar¬ 
chives are the living beech trees, in whose bark are rudely 
cut grotesque figures of the wild beasts he hunted, and de¬ 
stroyed, and her he loved. 

Why has he done; left no more? Often I have had inter¬ 
course with the sages, the lords of his people. If you ask 
them of the country whence their nation first came, they 
shake their heads; of their history, it is a tradition, that ex¬ 
tends but a little way back; of their religion, it is a giant 
spirit residing in the clouds, who wields the tomahawk above, 
and expresses his will in the roaring thunder. Why are his 
people so dark? Why has he, with the negro, and all the 
colored races not Celtic or Caucasian, remained in the first 
helpless infancy of nature; persevered forever in unmitigated 
barbarism, often starved, pressed by famine; animated by 
lawless ferocity, cannibalism, the great ideas, order of things 
—force of reason, unknown;—the excellence, beauty of no¬ 
ble virtue, the high, exalted sentiments of morality, religion, 
unfelt? Occupying countries the most capable of improve¬ 
ment, they have not improved; of affecting the heart, they 
have not been affected ; of the most penetrating inspiration 
for reflection, they have not reflected.—People, races, too, 
who occupy so much of the territories of this world. 

What answers can be given to these great questions, facts? 
For it is certain, after the general cataclysm by water, the 
Celtic or white families, who multiplied into nations, like 
the other branches of our race—the branches I describe here 
as still unimproved—all commenced at first, if we except the 
Hebrews, in ignorance and barbarism. The first light of 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


481 


letters was kindled on the banks of the Nile, whence it has 
been dispersed through all countries—kindled by Caucasians 
m the state in which nature produces men—in the gloom of 
ignorance and barbarism. The ancestors of Manetho, of Zo¬ 
roaster, Sanchoniathon, Orpheus, Linus, Homer, as all other 
gentile people, were barbarians. Who, then, when but little 
of the Bible was written or known, if the Bible be a ques¬ 
tion, taught Manetho history; Zoroaster and Sanchoniathon 
science and philosophy; Orpheus the knowledge of mono¬ 
theism, the sublime Love, who created the universe a har¬ 
monious, musical instrument to sound this Love ; and Linus 
and Homer the use of the lyre ? The early civilized Assyri¬ 
ans, Greeks, besides others, in elegant and useful arts, disco¬ 
veries, inventions, science, far excelled the Jews descended 
trom the same stock, and who had Revelation. We know it 
was from the East that the workmen came to build the tem¬ 
ple at Jerusalem; and that Solomon obtained the ships for 
the business, commerce of his kingdom. 

Why have all noble discoveries, enterprises been alone due 
to the different branches of the Celtic or w T hite family ? The 
inventions of arithmetic, geometry are of Egypt; the ori¬ 
gin of the alphabet is Egyptian, Basque* or Tudesque, of 
which history is doubtful. Why has one division of our 
race improved, originated vast political organizations, become 
civilized and happy; and why have the other divisions con¬ 
tinued in the night of incorrigible, eternal ignorance, stu¬ 
pidity, barbarism and wretchedness ? What answers, I say, 
can be given to these great questions, facts, but that these 
races which will not improve are born in natural dulness, 
heaviness—in an organic torpor of the soul—from which 
they never wake or stir ? 

I would not write aught against my race, or blot what 
nature has made fair. The order of facts, immovable in the 
course of time, write, declare these differences in our collec¬ 
tive species;—differences attested by the observations of all 
epochs, attested by actual anthropographic history. And to 
inquire why these differences exist, is the same as to inquire, 

* Vid. Juan Bautista de Erro—Alphabet of the Prim. Language of Spain. 


482 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


why our stars respect the heliacal centre; why the Pleiades 
in sisterly union wander forever in Heaven—things unthink¬ 
able. Gradation is a law of the universe. Some stars are 
greater; some less. The cryptogame, in its formation, unites 
on one side minerals, on the other, plants; the zoophyte, 
on the one side, vegetables, on the other, animals; man trun¬ 
cating the inverted cone of organic vitality, articulates with 
angels. There are archangels, which implies less angels— 
there is a varying zoology in Heaven. Nothing is equal 
but God. But is it advantages of country, climate, &c., 
which make these differences in the different organic types 
of men ? 

Physical and moral advantages .—Some countries from 
sterility are incompetent to supply the natural wants, and 
foster perpetual barbarism. In some sufficiently good, the 
genius of the people is depressed by military despotism; and 
improvement, civilization, are effectually restrained. War 
and the sovereignty of war are great modifiers of the state 
of society. From all these modifying circumstances, causes, 
there are still white nations, which have made but a few steps 
from the cradle of nature. Their soul is a strong spring, 
which is kept bent, which, when these restraining causes are 
removed, invariably put forth the beautiful flowers of arts, 
literature, and civilization. The blood of the Georgian and 
Circassian slave reigns on the thrones of Egypt and Persia. 
Why? Because knowledge is power; and the ability to 
know, is available power. But our limits do not allow us to 
trace this mighty picture. 

The American Aboriginals lived free under their own in¬ 
stitutions. They occupied a country, as we have seen, 
calculated in the highest degree to awaken, inspire genius 
were free from all causes which hinder or retard civilization, 
and yet they continued in barbarism. And whence does 
oppression come to the sable race, who tread the Afric soil, 
except from themselves?—the oppression of ignorance, es¬ 
sence of their nature—ignorance impregnable, durable as 
adamant in a country where every thing favors, urges to 
knowledge. 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


483 


But since that knowledge has sprung up, is it education, 
social advantages, which produce the differences of which I 
here speak? 

Education—social adva?itages .—Some of our Aboriginals 
have been educated in the colleges of Europe, and of our 
own country. Like the early Greeks, who visited Egypt, 
and other countries for instruction, when returned to the 
home of their fathers, they did not teach, inspire their peo¬ 
ple with the love and cultivation of our arts, sciences, morals 
and religion. These exotics were uncongenial, foreign to 
them, were foreign to the national genius, unsuited to the 
public taste and manners of their people; and returned, says 
Dr. Franklin, “they fell in again with the way of their race.” 
Indeed, the light of our civilization, which has now been 
shining upon them for some centuries, upon the whole, has 
rather injured than ameliorated their condition. They have 
loved, preferred our vices more than our improvements. 
Their genius is the sterile mother of their arts, morals, 
religion;—of their unchangeable barbarism unfolded in the 
great action of time. They are the mellow fruit of their 
natural understanding; and all the exotic flavor and richness 
which may be imparted soon exhale and waste. Like the 
form of man they bear, their soul is not the soul of the white 
race; and since one species of trees does not produce the 
fruit of another, since all in organic nature is distinct, it 
would be unphysical, that they should bud, and bring forth 
the moral and intellectual fruits of this race. 

In the negro variety among us, so long, so constantly and 
vividly impressed by our morals, religion and way of life, 
are plainly visible the stupidity, dulness, the disposition to 
cruelty and ferocity—all the outlines of the character of their 
natural or original state. In the young negro you behold 
these outlines developed in his appetites, inclinations, in¬ 
stincts, as strongly as they were in his father’s born in the 
wilds of the native country. 

They are religious, but manifest generally a very feeble 
sense of piety, and of the sanctity of the sacred ordinances. 


484 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


According to Dr. Moseley,* it was so in the West Indies. 
“Besides overseers,” says he, “ministers were employed 
and sent out by the English to preach on their plantations.” 
To encourage the negroes in religion, these ministers were 

O O O' 

in the habit of bestowing some trifling present, on the ad¬ 
ministration of their baptism. They took advantage of this 
custom, and some were detected in having been baptized 
many times for the sake of these presents. 

Born in our families, grown up under the plastic force, 
the forming hands of civilization, they imitate in their ac¬ 
tions, but in their hearts cherish a weak sense of its refine¬ 
ments. Occupying their place in the sanctuary, religion is 
a tumultuous, vehement, but evanescent passion. But few 
feel its steady force; and on the slightest provocation, often 
they display their feelings in ingratitude, unmerited ven¬ 
geance and cruelty. The passions and instincts form the 
main base of their nature, in which reason is but a feeble ele¬ 
ment. With all the same opportunities as ourselves, their 
works of art fall far below common perfection. They are 
only bad, rude imitators, not designers. 

Living in the midst of plenty procured by cares foreign to 
them, with their futurity always unclouded, they pass their 
days in gaiety, singing simple songs of loud and deep into¬ 
nation with regular returning cadence. It is the present 
they enjoy manifesting but little anxiety or solicitude for any 
pleasure or gratification which necessitates diligence and the 
growth of time. 

Travellers in their native country assure us, the torments 
of the future agitate them but little; and they stir princi¬ 
pally when hunger, the wants, press them. This reckless¬ 
ness of futurity appears natural to them; for when abandoned 
to themselves among us, they neglect to provide for coming 
wants though protected by law; and tend rapidly to the na¬ 
tural or savage state. Despite the force of habits, of industry, 
of religion, whose tendencies are to soften, console the feel¬ 
ings; and forgetting the comforts, amid which they had lived, 
—the protection, pleasures, enjoyments of civilization—they 

* Fevers of the West Indies. 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


485 


sink down at once into their original barbarism, and walk no 
more with us. They are the strong bow of Ulysses, which, 
when the string is broke, becomes again straight. In all 
their unrestrained acts, developments of their sensibility, they 
constantly manifest the original principles, constitution of 
their nature. Time rains no poppies on them. Their civil¬ 
ized life is a movement against the movement of nature. 
Their generations evolve, and pass where sympathy moves, 
kindness consoles, religion softens, reason originates law r s, 
honor gives dignity to sentiment, humanity wipes the tears 
—the light burns,—but they only reflect faintly, and never 
absorb its beams. The same distinctions with which na¬ 
ture has marked their external, organic contours, are scored 
deep, fixed inerasably on the frame-work of their minds. 

It is manifestly the cares of which I speak, that comfort 
their days, sustain them constantly above their race’s level, 
and impart such rapid motion to their increasing population. 
And when the events of the world sever them from these 
cares, and fling them on their own resources, in their misfor¬ 
tune and calamity, they must tend rapidly to annihilation. 

The same peculiarities which mark the negro variety, 
modified, characterize the Aboriginal Americans. They too, 
as intimated, cannot relish, breathe freely in the moral and 
intellectual atmosphere of our civilization. Our philan¬ 
thropic, tender-hearted religion has been borne into their 
wilderness. They have received it with distrust; some¬ 
times killed* those who had brought it to them; and, 
according to Dr. Franklin and others, manifested a dispo¬ 
sition to prefer their own. These peculiarities, modified in 
all, extend to all the permanent varieties of our species. 

We have presented, in outline, one branch of the Olive, 
and one of the Ethiopic stock living our neighbor, living 
among us:—the one appropriating the vices arising from 
our culture, but refusing chiefly the benefits of it, and per¬ 
severing in the savage life:—the other through necessity 
practising our virtues, our w T ay of life; living our civiliza¬ 
tion, and falling into original barbarism, when this necessity 

* Vid. Heckewelder’s Narrative. 


41 


486 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


is removed. Let us compare, contrast with these two vari¬ 
eties of men, some of the white races, barbarians of Celtic 
or Teutonic origin. . 

Their comparison with the Pelasgi and early Italians .— 
These Pelasgi, nomades, in great antiquity penetrated into 
Greece; the early Italians, a predaceous band, into Italy. 
Each in their epoch established and practised gregiculture, 
agriculture, the industrious arts of life, and commerce. Each 
built cities, raised up barriers of defence; and with their 
swords marked the foundations of their empire on the ex¬ 
tremities of the inhabitable world. At first they had no 
teachers but nature and themselves. 

Contemplate these Pelasgi, sea-sprung, barbarian hordes 
wandering, when the gloom of tradition first began to 
brighten with the rising light of history, in the fertile valleys 
at the feet of Mount Olympus, Taygetus, Zarex—the valleys 
touching Epidaurus, the Sicilian promontory, Argolic gulf. 

' Their food at first was milk, wild berries, and acorns, or a 
species of chesnut as Pausanias and Pliny believed. They 
waged exterminating wars against monstrous and ferocious 
wild beasts; and protected from their assaults their flocks 
and their bed-chambers. 

Like that of chaos, primeval, universal darkness then 
hung on their moral and intellectual horizon. But in this 
darkness their hearts felt the pressure of wants. It is the 
wants nature originally impresses on man’s internal organi¬ 
zation, which stimulate the activity of his soul, and put his 
hands in motion—wants, which sigh after arts, inventions, 
—commands the grain to vegetate in the soil; cities to start 
up from nothing; the ship to sail; political order to come 
forth; the picture to appear on the canvas; the marble to 
start up from the quarry and live :—wants, which distin¬ 
guish all organic existence from the mineral; and distin¬ 
guish according to their numbers and activity. It was 
these wants they felt —wants which, when numerous and 
active, always necessitate, are always connected with, a 
strong and firm texture of the soul. 

It is these wants which mark, on the calendar of civiliza- 


RELIGION CIVIL. 


487 


tion, the degree, since from them originate all science, art, 
industry—all intellectual activities. It is upon them the 
forces of the external world operate, and in them the mind 
feels the charm of whatever it investigates—charm of all 
knowledge. This charm unfelt, indicates the feebleness as 
the fewness of these wants— is barbarism. The paucity of 
these wants in the distribution of nature, is barbarism , the 
barbarism which continues forever. The lavishment of these 
same wants is barbarism, which will soften, civilize by kind¬ 
ling the light of letters— barbarism of these Pelasgi, Italians; 
of all the white races. 

In all the richness of their strength and numbers, these 
wants stimulated these nomadic Pelasgi. They gave them¬ 
selves to study and contemplation; collected together the 
observations they had made; and drew forth order and form 
for the teaching of the Grecian children who descended 
from them. Their posterity following up, extending this 
order, by generalizing their ideas, arrived at two great con¬ 
ceptions, the algebraic x and y of nature’s unknown quantity; 
or to two eternal principles, matter and intelligence —the one 
passive, modifiable; the other active, unchangeable. This 
discovery made, they produced the order of the universe. 
On the Empyrean, on the azure summits of their mountains, 
they fixed the palace of this original, sovereign Intelligence; 
personified the forces or laws of nature by which he governs, 
and subjected them to his will; and, in the discovery of the 
immortality of the soul, and other sublime truths, reached 
near as man can the source of sacred inspiration. 

They diffused around them the excess of intellectual vi¬ 
tality, which they enjoyed. All inanimate objects soon 
breathed the living breath; felt in human language; and 
spoke. The arts came forth hand in hand smiling; tore 
from their humanity the hard and rugged covering of bar¬ 
barism that had profaned it; threw round it the soft purple 
of another life; and it walked forth in charming originality. 

The light of civilization thus originated, has darted with 
varied splendor over the heads of all generations since; and 
must continue. But it is only over the Caucasian families, 
the countries in which they have lived, to which they erni- 


488 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


grate, its beams play down time. What interesting moments 
the world has witnessed ! when this light kindled in these 
countries remote from one another, as in Egypt, India, Scan¬ 
dinavia, has blended its rays, as at the epoch of Grecian 
science, of printing.—But in all generations, the light falls in 
vain on the* other varieties of our species. They still group 
—group forever in the first darkness of nature, and in ori¬ 
ginal privations, hardships and wretchedness. 

If, therefore, to the Olive, the negro varieties of our race, 
nature presented the earth a rude and wild habitation —a 
place to learn in —the same as to them, she presented Greece 
to the Pelasgi, and Italy to the first Romans. These, as all 
the families more or less have done, to which they belong, 
we see, have created civilization. They learn, originate, 
and teach it to one another. But the Indian, the negro, with 
all their respective branches, occupy still the same ground 
or nearly the same on which nature abandoned them to 
manage for themselves. They neither arrive at civilization, 
nor learn it from others, nor teach it to one another. Finally 
I repeat, what answer can be given to the great question of 
these differences, but that nature creating sense and reason 
has made the same variations in them as in the complexions 
and organic contours of the different types of men? 

But for these inequalities of natural sense and understand¬ 
ing, all descriptions of men in good countries would alike 
approach near the same intellectual equilibrium; and bar¬ 
barism and civilization could not exist together in the same 
geographical limits. Did these inequalities not exist, it never 
could have been proclaimed with truth, as did Hobbes, that 
“ religion is a tale believed in one country, but disbelieved 
in another, is superstition.” 

But if nature has made a difference in races, we see, on 
individuals of the same country, of the same lineage, the 
gifts of intelligence are bestowed with very partial hands, 
which constitutes it a glory to be a Racine, a Shakspeare, 
Pascal, a Rubens or Angelo. 

The white collective race alone civilizes—unfolds its o-enius 

. o 

in sciences, arts and letters with various perfections. It is 


REFLECTIONS ON CIVIL RELIGION. 


489 


with the genius of this race harmonizes the sublime theology 
—genius of Christianity—the race which has ever cherished 
it as one of its religions; and from the highest antiquity, 
brought it down through all the changes of the world. 

REFLECTIONS 

On civil religion , and conclusion of this work. 

We may conceive the entire system of the world to be 
animated by a progressive movement; and, since the forces 
which actuate it are definite, that its idea includes a limited 
series of events, or an eternal revolution through these series. 
The earth is passing through continual changes or revolu¬ 
tions of her surface. Her magnetic meridians have a motion 
which appears steady, and most probably depends upon the 
equable action in equal times of the general forces of the 
entire system—forces, which achieve the great progressive 
movement of the whole of which I have just spoken. 

It is not reasonable that man should stand still where 
every thing around him advances. Like his world, like the 
earth he inhabits, he too is passing through a series of phy¬ 
sical or organic revolutions, generations, in which the life of 
his species is constantly renewed, to nourish which life the 
earth renews her face. We are assured from the Bible, he 
will not have an eternal motion through these organic revo¬ 
lutions. 

His mental and moral forces are less steady in the revolu¬ 
tionary action, and less defined, but nevertheless their changes 
are very observable. In these changes we may conceive, 
he will yet be presented in many new phases of his being. 

The art of printing begun will augment the treasure of 
his general knowledge, give it an impulse forward through 
a great duration yet, and protect with good success against 
the causes, which have heretofore destroyed it, and brought 
on the world again barbarism. The use of gunpowder in 
battle will make war less destructive of life; snatch victory 
from brute force; and secure it to those who excel in the 
power of intelligence. 


41 * 


490 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


The art of printing will ultimately make felt the want of 
an universal language, and stimulate to its invention or 
adoption. This language, the public, universal depository 
of the ideas, inventions, improvements, sciences of all intelli¬ 
gent nations, to which each individual of society could have 
easy access, will consummate for the world the good of the 
invention of printing. When this great language existing 
shall collect together in one body, and present in one view 
all the discoveries, all the efforts of the reason of men in all 
enlightened countries, and of all ages, in the universal com¬ 
parison of ideas, which will then become practicable, pure 
science and truth must advance, new arts rapidly spring up, 
inventions occur, discoveries be made unwitnessed before 
by all past time of history. 

In the improvement of general knowledge, philosophers 
will look on nature with new eyes, and hold under the con¬ 
trol of their intelligence a greater amount of her forces. By 
the improved light of chemistry soils may be composed of 
new fertility, which may transform—compel many of the 
grasses and shrubs now bitter and useless to produce the 
savory food of men, as the cabbage, the mellow apple and 
others have already been produced. The great forces, by 
which nature moves the machinery of the world, and carries 
on her labors, might be more successfully applied to human 
machines, inventions and the achievement of human labor. 
Philosophers would prescribe to executing mechanics the 
principles, on which they are to construct labor-sparing en¬ 
gines. The dynamical properties of matter arranged in the 
mechanic arts, according to the ideas of philosophers, would 
subdue matter principally, and place it under human sove¬ 
reignty. In this triumph of intelligence, the improved arts 
would create new pleasures, new sources of enjoyment— 
remodel private and public happiness—ennoble and beautify 
the race in the earth. 

In the progress of these happy ages, these philosophers 
might detect the laws of human embryogeny—might ascer¬ 
tain all the circumstances, facts attendant on the repro¬ 
duction of a man or a woman of sublime genius, exquisite 


REFLECTIONS ON CIVIL RELIGION. 


491 


beauty and perfection — ascertain in the initial formation 
what afterwards makes one individual a poet, another a 
mathematician; another a homicide, an idiot; one a hand¬ 
some, another an ugly form. Having thus detected the 
laws which mould individuals, and fix their destiny in the 
world, they could prescribe formulae to the legislators of the 
country for the enactment of civil laws to regulate inter¬ 
marriages ; and by these laws or this means correct the 
errors principally of organic and moral formation, which 
are now so detrimental to the public good and necessitate 
so many penal laws to restrain. By this philosophical regu¬ 
lation of intermarriages, a prodigious amount of physical 
beauty, and of moral and intellectual perfection, might be 
imparted to the species; and men produced according to the 
w*ants of society, its appropriate elements. 

The adoption of an universal language would stimulate 
energetically to the public amity and peace of mankind. 
For the want of such a tongue, the time we now spend to 
perfect our minds in the study of learned languages of the 
living and the dead, would be devoted to the study of arts, 
literature, and general physics, which would impart addi¬ 
tional velocity to their movement, and help on to perfection. 
In the peace, to which such language would tend, the 
population of the world would increase; but the increase of 
knowledge, by the means of soils I have mentioned, and by 
other means, would supply bread for a limited duration. 
The arts, which would be, would fight against the boreal 
cold, the equatorial heat, the lapideous, the water-covered 
soils; and subject a greater portion of the continents than 
heretofore to human inhabitation. 

When this duration expired, and food and room were 
wanted, the people of the enlightened countries would begin 
to drive the unenlightened races before them; and, when 
their own numbers should be equal to the then inhabitable 
lands, the branch of the Caucasian stock the most improved, 
by the irresistible power of intelligence, knowledge, would 
push, drive out of the earth the other branches with the 
Indian, the negro—all the other races, ebauches of men; and 


492 


INTELLECTUAL OPERATIONS. 


take the sole possession. If not effectually restrained, sup¬ 
pressed, in the future fortunes of the world, augmenting 
science must build the sepulchre for all the human races 
ruined in their stamina by improper food; improper inter¬ 
mixture, malicious, predaceous climate; by sojourning long 
in unhealthy situations; and who cannot improve. Since 
it is the greatest of all moral forces, and these races oppose 
nothing to uphold its equilibrium, it must ultimately fall 
upon them, and destroy; and yield all countries to the pos¬ 
session of a single race. 

In this advanced stage of society, by the power of inves¬ 
tigation, the problem of human nature or proportions of man 
with the universe, would be solved; and the passions mainly 
freed from all that is wrong. The knowledge of the divine 
workmanship of the world, or general physics, in their high 
attainments, would become so many branches of theology. 
The meaning of sacred revelation fully made out, the sub¬ 
lime contemplations of men would present the Divine Crea¬ 
tor as living on the earth, and receiving homage, the supreme 
pleasure; and his pure knowledge cover it, as its waters. 
All the exquisite beauty, attractive forms of thought, would 
be presented in the flight of poetry; and the abyss of ages, 
to \vhich men reluctant go, become a field of open flowers. 


A BRIEF 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT 

OF THE 

MIDDLE REGIONS 

OF 

GEORGIA. 

BY JOHN B. GORMAN, M.D. 
















































TO 

DANIEL 13. SEARCY, M.D., 

OF MONROE, 

IN DEMONSTRATION OF THE AUTHOR’S HIGH ESTEEM AND GOOD WILL, AND OF HIS 

SENSE OF YOUR ATTAINMENTS IN TIIF. 

SCIENCE OF MEDICINE AND BRANCHES OF GENERAL PHYSICS, 

THIS OPUSCULUM 

ON THE FEVERS OF OUR COMMON COUNTRY, 

IN THE STUDY AND SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF WHICH, YOUR ACTIVE LIFE HAS 
THUS FAR BEEN SO USEFULLY SPENT, IS, WITH YOUR PERMISSION, 

* RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 


BY THE AUTHOR 
















































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MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


\ 


After the example of the illustrious physician of Cos, 
those who write the history, and explain the nature of dis¬ 
eases, have found it useful, for their more perfect compre¬ 
hension, to study the physical geography of the countries 
where they appear; the food, clothing, arts, avocations, state 
of civilization or general condition of society. Since all ex¬ 
ternal agents, the passions, slate of the mind, modify the 
organic constitution of man, and disease is only a particu¬ 
lar condition, this study is indispensable to the enlightened 
knowledge of disease All the several topics connected with 
it are comprehended under medical topography. 


CHAPTER I. 

TOPOGRAPHICAL MILLEDGEVILLE AND THE MIDDLE REGIONS OF GEORGIA. 

Within a period little less than half a century, the spot 
on which Milledgeville now stands, with a large area of the 
surrounding country, constituted the hunting ground of the 
aboriginal people. 

SECTION I. 

TRADITION AND HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF MILLEDGEVILLE. 

Like the people of ancient Greece, our fathers came 
across the water, moored their ships, and reared up their 


4 2 





498 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


rude habitations nearest the sea, where the soil promised the 
best harvest. On the one side fell the roar of the Ocean; 
on the other, extended the illimitable wilderness—lonely, 
frightful solitudes, where roamed the fierce wild Indian. Liv¬ 
ing in constant fear, mothers then watched round their cra¬ 
dles and fathers wrought near their homes. 

As the population increased by birth and emigration— 
ages began—the settlement made, continued to expand, and 
extend out into the back country driving the savages before 
it, until Savannah, Augusta and Louisville in succession 
became the most convenient seats to the central mass of the 
representative people, where statesmen assembled to enact 
laws, and regulate the affairs of civil polity. 

Finally, during the administration of Governor Milledge, a 
new grant for lands was obtained from the Indians, when it 
was observable the population was still advancing rapidly to 
the West. It now became the policy of the state, as well as a 
matter of economy, to permanently locate the seat of adminis¬ 
trative government in the centre of the acknowledged limits 
of Georgia. The maps showed this desired locality was cir¬ 
cumscribed in the country obtained in the late grant. Ac¬ 
cording to the tradition, legends of the times, a number of 
commissioners was ordered out by the state to explore the 
new lands, and select the permanent seat, where public rule 
should be established; and whence hereafter in perpetuo 
laws should emanate. 

Unlike those, I may say, who in great antiquity explored 
the wilds of Latium to fix upon the site, where Long Alba, 
the eternal city of Lavina, should be built— 

Ad flumenis undam 

Litoreis ingens inventa sub illicibus sus, 

Triginta capitum foetus enixa jacebat 
—Is locus urbis erit, requies ea certa laborum— 

these commissioners had no unerring signals given to point 
them to the spot. Sound judgment and good discretion their 
only guides, they wandered long through green savannas 
and the dark shade of endless forests. For it was in the 
gay season, when nature shows in all the beauty and luxuri- 


PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 


499 


ance of her summer verdure, they set out on their exploring 
expedition. After many lonely wanderings through these 
wild solitudes, they fell in with the country on the western 
banks of the Oconee river, whose clear waters in these days, 
reflected the deep blue color of the sky. Here many locali¬ 
ties presented charms, and solicited their preference. Pur¬ 
suing their course, soon they came where the land rose up 
before their eyes beautifully undulating; and hills on hills 
crowded the distant horizon. The waters gushed up cool 
and limpid from the virgin earth to slake the thirst, and 
flowed away in pleasant streamlets. The growth of the soil 
evinced great fertility. 

Animated by the scene presented, and convinced of the 
suitableness—“ Here,” cried they, “ is the spot we seek. 
Here cheerfully shines the sun; the breeze here freshens in 
its course; and in the distance, the dashing rivulets murmur 
over the sloping rocks. Yonder extends the fruit-bearing 
soil to the declivity of the distant mountains; and yonder 
are the Oconee waters to bear the products to the Atlantic 
traffic. Here are all the natural elements of the city whose 
place we are to determine. These are the appropriate 
seats of the lofty houses of state, of the temples and altars 
of liberty.” And it was here the foundations of Milledge- 
ville were laid, and the city reared up on a spot similar, and 
in situation resembling that of the city I have mentioned— 
ad Jiumenis undam . 

SECTION II. 

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 

Whether it be the indigenous products of the soil, or the 
structure and formation of the country, which are contem¬ 
plated, the subject offers a deep interest to the natural phi¬ 
losopher and geologists. 


500 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


ARTICLE I. 

Natural history. 

The natural history of our own, of all the southwestern 
states, remains principally unexplored, and consequently, is 
but little known. The states immediately north and west 
of us are in the same condition. The zoology is nearly the 
same in all. But our phytography with that of the country 
still more south, is rich and varied. 

Our natural history has yet to take its flight. The age 
of philosophy musing has not come; we have not yet built 
the altars of the great sciences. The passions always on 
the advance, demand from nature first their gratification; 
and snatch greedily from her her rich and precious gifts. 
It is they, which have proclaimed with imperial authority, 
‘‘riches shall have the first honors, shall constitute the pri¬ 
mordial elements of character, dignity, personal importance,” 
and, unholy, have erected the standard to measure the stature 
of thought. It is they, wdiich have thrust their profane 
hands into the bosom of our virgin country, grasped after 
the great cotton staple; and, in a few r short years, the phan¬ 
tom soil has begun to disappear unveiling hideous sterility. 
But the passions will cool their hot fire, and calm with 
time; and amid the symphonies of the coming harps of my 
country, knowledge will reveal her beautiful and attractive 
forms, and become an honored guest in the temple of our 
freedom. 

Our contemplations being purely medical, all this rich 
and unfrequented field is forbidden us, except so far as it 
presents a bearing on public hygiene and nosogeny. 

As do all the Atlantic States, Georgia presents two very 
distinct and separate faces of country and characters of soil. 
For an average of about one hundred miles, the face next 
the Atlantic is extremely level, variegated occasionally by 
paludal waters, and wet, oozy ravines. The soil is light 
and sandy. From this sandy soil, where the other face 
commences, the surface rises; breaks into hills and valleys, 


NATURAL HISTORY OF THE STATE. 


501 


the hills rising higher and higher till they reach the moun¬ 
tains. The soil is firm, carbonaceous and fertile. 

Those, however, who hereafter study nature in Georgia, 
must, will, make of the whole state three principal divisions. 
The first lying along the Atlantic of one hundred miles in 
the transverse section, will be considered pure or homogene¬ 
ous as to the forming elements; the second lying immedi¬ 
ately west, and running in a parallel line with the first of 
about forty or fifty miles in the transverse section, impure 
or heterogeneous; and the third extending from this second 
line to the mountain boundary, like the first, pure and un¬ 
mixed, but wholly different in the structure and materials. 

The physical geography of the second division partici¬ 
pates in the characters of the two sections on either side, 
both as to the phytography and geological elements, which 
we are soon to consider. 

The first division into two great faces or surfaces, we 
made, will be sufficient for our purpose; the triple section 
will serve to facilitate the expression of accurate description. 

The phytology of the two great faces differs in the extreme. 
The growth of the first is almost exclusively the pine, and 
some few grasses; of the second, an endless variety of 
flowers, shrubs, grasses, brushwood and forest trees. 

What may be termed the middle regions of Georgia, to 
which our observations are limited, includes the whole of 
the second section, and a part of the third, the western limits 
of this second section extending along a line south of the 
city of Milledgeville, and reaching close up to it. 

Hydraulic arrangement of the country. The great rivers, 
which intersect the state, all run in the same direction, at a 
•distance of about thirty miles from one another. These 
rivers flow to the southeast and cut the isothermal lines at 
an angle of about 35°. The middle grounds between are 
the highest ranges of the country, through which they pass 
running parallel with their course. On each side of these 
elevated grounds burst the cool fountains, which form the 
tributary streamlets; so that the discharging trunks of the 
streamlets on each side with all their ramuli, would be 


42* 


502 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


represented by two trees fallen with their tops in juxtaposi¬ 
tion. Betwen the ramuli extend the fertile lands, formed 
as it would appear, to stimulate human industry, and for 
social happiness and domestic bliss. 

Thus the mode of hydraulics nature has adopted here, 
beautiful and admirable as the country for which it was 
formed, favors the exhalation of the waters for the formation 
of clouds and dews; and the passage of the residue into the 
sea. 

This description, however, applies only to the second and 
third sections, whose inclination to the sea appears to be 
much greater in proportion, than that of the sandy or first 
division. I know not that the relative elevations above the 
level of the sea have been ascertained by our civil engineers, 
but it is certain, the country from the sandy boundary rises 
much more rapidly than that from the sea to this boun¬ 
dary, manifested by the greater velocity of the river waters. 
The face of these tw r o sections accordingly is much more 
favorable to the hydronamic movement, which everywhere 
active urges away the rain.water, and allows it to accumu¬ 
late nowhere into ponds or lakes on the surface; while on 
the sandy face, from the tardiness or inefficiency of this 
movement, the water from the clouds accumulates, as inti¬ 
mated, into ponds, or by boiling fountains, lakes are formed, 
which have no discharging conduits to conduct their floods 
into the sea. 

Phytography . The vegetable products of the different 
faces of the country vary, as I have already said, on the 
widest scale. The sandy face formed by vast plains, cov¬ 
ered with monotonous pines, and intersected by wet boggy 
ravines, is sterile, and repays but very sparingly for the la¬ 
bor of cultivation. The paludal and fluviatic growth only 
exhibit any thing like variety. From the great sterility it 
must ever continue chiefly a wilderness, and the sparse 
population it feeds, principally by gregiculture and the chase, 
with some exceptions, remain forever in letters, religion, 
civilization, far inferior to the same people, who occupy the 
other two faces of the country. 


NATURAL HISTORY OF THE STATE. 


503 


The site Milledgeville occupies in the second division, on 
the western range of hills, which border on the low grounds 
of the Oconee river, in the original state, was covered by 
luxuriant grass, and the dark shade of the forest. Here, in 
antiquity, many of the magnolias opened their voluminous, 
fragrant flowers; the oak and the poplar, always rivals, 
waved their branches together, and displayed the grandeur 
of their forms. By the side of the oaks rose up many of 
the proud coniferae; at their feet the Cornus Florida opened 
its cold white flowers; the monocotyledons found room for 
many of their numerous race, and the great dicotyledonous 
family in crowds unfolded their verdure. 

The soil on which the city rests, firm and carbonaceous, 
extends, without much variation, except in the mineralogy, 
to the mountain boundary; and the sylvae or phytographyis 
nearly the same. 

According to the divisions now made, about one-third 
of the whole state is a sand more or less sterile, which lying 
low and level slopes gradually to the sea-shore; the other 
two-thirds rich and fruitful, rise with greater proportional 
elevation to the western limits. With the varying face of 
the country, with the varying richness, the living produc¬ 
tions vary—the vegetable tribes, and the civilized population. 
Plants, animals, man, everywhere bear the impress of the 
nourishing soil. The marks, modifications, the soil effects, are 
chiefly visible in the organic contours of plants and animals; 
but man wears them written on his moral constitution, on 
his soul, as well as on his body. The people of no country 
are exempt from them. And if, as we know, the Bedouins 
of Arab descent differ from Arabs, the people on the lands 
which slope to the Caspian and other seas differ from the 
same people living nearer the cacuminal ranges of countries, 
so the sparse inhabitants of the sandy plains—what bears 
the living form—differ from those who occupy the two 
upper sections, or the Arcadian portions of our country. 

In many localities, a great number of the phytographica 
are crowded into narrow space; and in many, the frame¬ 
work or skeleton of the country is left bare. Nature, I may 


504 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


say, has tempted man here to study her labors. A dark 
night still lives upon them. One day, the geognost and the 
faunist will come with the lighted torch. O nubes fugientes! 
O dare dies , et optande !—and the august voice of science 
will be heard, commanding them to assume the order of 
human reason. 

t 

ARTICLE II. 

Geologij. 

The scenes presented beneath the flat surface, and loose 
sandy soil; and beneath that of the second range of the tri¬ 
ple section made, warrant for these two divisions the deno¬ 
mination of Atlantica. The vast amount of calcareous mat¬ 
ters at every approachable depth beneath the surface, found 
in the organic state, and in almost every variety of chemical 
modification, marks here, at some epoch, the great abundance 
and activity of marine life; while the strata, which cover 
this once living scene, and entomb these ruins, everywhere 
manifest the action of water—all bearing testimony, that 
this part of the country has been born of the sea. 

But here it is not ours to consider the active forces which 
lead in geological changes—forces which on land upheave 
some parts of the surface, and depress others—which for 
ever impels the sea-water in deep channels along the floor of 
the oceans—which of the zoo tic ruins alone form so largely 
the solid bases of all countries, as well as the soils that cover 
them—nor contemplate those great floods which broke over 
the isthmus, which must anciently have united Africa to 
America, swept away the entire surface, except what now 
forms the West India Islands; excavated the basin of the 
Caribbean Sea; and deposited the detrita on our former 
coast, driving the waves one hundred and fifty miles farther 
back from where they broke. These detrita, deposited in 
the shallows of our sea, raised up the bottom above the 
watery surface; and filling up all the bays, creeks, tongues 
of water, which extended out, and occupied the second sec¬ 
tion of our division, formed of the whole drv land; and drove 

*/ / 


GENERAL GEOLOGY. 


505 


the sea back to its actual boundaries. This whole region 

. m o 

constituting our Atlantica, everywhere presents monuments 
of which in a moment I shall speak, of this manner of for¬ 
mation. 

The soil here is a silicious sand impregnated with carbon 
of vegeto-animal origin, and, in some places, is covered over 
with a thin layer of carboniferous earth. The chief and 
perhaps only basis on which it rests, is strata of the carbon¬ 
ates, and hydrocarbonates of lime, often infiltrated, and 
colored by the oxides of iron forming ochres. Masses of 
sandstone and lithodomous rocks are occasionally observed 
on the surface. 

On the extreme limits of the county, in which I reside, 
there is a locality, w T here these sandstones present in the 
distance a most magnificent, and imposing spectacle—that 
of a great city in ruins. The place is an elevated, sandy 
plain, the ground behind the rocks breaking precipitately 
into a deep ravine, and leaving the horizon blue and open. 
It is remote from any settlement, and lonely. No noise is 
heard, except the low moaning of the pine tops, which con¬ 
tinues to fill the hollow void above you, even when no breath 
of air is stirring, awakening superstitious dread. The plain 
being elevated, these rocks beautifully white, are visible at 
a considerable distance. On the approach, you behold them 
above the dwarf pines extending in a pretty regular line to 
the horizon on each side. In some places, their angular 
forms present to the eye the appearance of superb edifices 
of pretty regular architecture; in others, from their rounded 
tops, that of great domes; in some, that of a vast colonnade, 
the tops of the columns here and there broken off. The 
summits of many of these rocks having been dislodged, and 
thrown down by earthquakes, present the appearance of 
ruins. Thus, nature subjects the works reared up by her 
own art to the same decay as those of man’s. 

The soil on which this mock city stands, like that of 
most of the surrounding country, and a large portion of this 
entire region, is a deep sand, which rests below on the lime¬ 
stones I have already described. In many circumscribed 


506 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


localities, in place of this sand, a dense stratum of red clay 
covered by a fruitful soil, lies upon these stones. In some 
places it has been found to be from fifty to sixty feet in 
thickness. It contains none of the remains of life; and evi¬ 
dently has been brought down from the elevated parts of the 
country, and deposited where it occupies, by the action of 
river w 7 aters. Wherever this red stratum exists, these re¬ 
mains are always discovered below the depth it reaches. 
Thus, in digging for water, fourteen miles southeast of 
Milledgeville, sixty feet from the surface, and below this stra¬ 
tum, was drawn up a quantity of shells of the univalve and 
bivalve mollusca, which formed a bed there. They were 
solid; looked fresh and beautiful, many of them still retain¬ 
ing their deep carnation color. Their place was the place of 
the limestones, which occupied the bottom of the sea, that 
preceded the land-formation. 

Where this red, clayey stratum does not exist, the zootic 
ruins are met with at every depth from the surface. On sink¬ 
ing a well in Twigs county, at the distance of thirty feet, 
the shaft passed through a dense layer of beautiful anthra¬ 
cite—future store-house of domestic fuel. Near Mr. John¬ 
son’s mills in the same county, at the bottom of a ravine 
covered in shallow fountain water, a coral reef of some extent 
is visible in the dry season, and in a state of perfect preser¬ 
vation. These zoophytic limestones are found in different 
localities. Four miles above Sandersville, is a bed of oolite, 
containing innumerable remains of the Terebratula spinosa , 
Pholadomyia fidicula , and species resembling the Gryphcea 
incurvata , and other spiral mollusca, found in the lias for¬ 
mation of France, England and Germany. 

The limestones immediately under the red clayey stratum 
where it occurs, and elsewhere, under the most superficial 
layer of the whole of the Atlantica, contain in abundance the 
imprints or remains of species of genera living and extinct 
—of ammonites, oysters, crabs, lobsters—shells turbinated, 
umbrellated, multilocular—every variety, w r e may suppose, 
now existing in the nearest seas. These fossiliferous lime¬ 
stones, as already, may be regarded as forming of themselves 


GENERAL GEOLOGY. 


507 


the subterraneous floor of this entire region ; and, in the order 
which preceded, as occupying, in the soft or unformed state, 
the floor of the ancient sea, with which the relics of whose 
life became incorporated. 

The geology of the country from the line, where the hills 
rise, and the surface undulates to the mountains, is altogether 
different from that of the Atlantica. Here, as I have noticed, 
the soil is firm and solid ; the clay on which it rests deeply 
stained with the metallic oxides. Scattered over the surface, 
or collected in beds, here are found the ores of the metals. 
Here the metallic, metalliferous veins run in the depths of 
the earth. The ranges of granite extend ; stoop as they ap¬ 
proach the streamlets, and great rivers to let the water thun¬ 
der over their tops, generating mechanical powers; mount 
again on the opposite banks; go on, and are lost in unascer¬ 
tained limits. 

As well as in other localities, fine specimens of this granite 
are to be seen at the plantation formerly of W. Searcy, Esq., 
near the state capital. The forming feldspar being pure 
white, the color consequently is a handsome gray. 

Occasionally are interspersed beds of schist of different 
geological characters. A solid bed of this substance in the 
bottom of the Oconee river, with the lamellar edges nearly 
vertical to the zenith, cost the state considerable sums of 
money in attempting its removal to land the trade on the 
banks opposite the capital. But, for the want of professional 
skill and knowledge in the civil engineer employed, the 
enterprise completely failed. Thus rocks teach legislators 
wisdom; and figure in the history of national enterprises. 

I will add—the anticlinical dip of the transition rocks 
sinks below, and cuts the plain of the western horizon at an 
angle of about 38°. I know not at what point the clinical 
dip commences. 

The whole aspect of this region evinces, that the surface 
has remained long stationary, where it lies. The huge frag¬ 
ments broken off, the deep fissures in the oldest rocks, enor¬ 
mous bowlder-stones scattered about in places, not idiolithige- 
nous , all show, at some time, it has been subject to violent, 


508 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


internal movements, convulsions. All the principal rivers, 
too, bear the same testimony to this great antiquity. I will 
mention only the Oconee, as it passes the capital. In the 
hills more than a mile opposite Col. Williams’s mills, occa¬ 
sionally hang fractured masses of breccia, which have evi¬ 
dently been broken olf by the action of the river current. 
In the sides of the same hills are great quantities of small 
bowlders, or water-rolled pebbles. These pebbles lie scat¬ 
tered over all the intervening ground to the present banks 
of the river; and are the same as those now in its channel. 
The river-marks, in many places, on the sides of these hills, 
are elevated far above the highest modern floods. In differ¬ 
ent epochs, every thing shows throughout the whole area, 
that the river has had different channels, which it has suc¬ 
cessively made and abandoned; and that the one it now 
occupies, is of great age. Like the Po, the Rhone,—by the 
action of its waters in relabent time, it has elevated its im¬ 
mediate banks considerably above the back ground, adjacent 
to the first range of hills. 

Were the alluvia of this and other rivers laid open, no 
doubt but the fossilized relics of huge Saurians, ophidious 
reptiles, and other living forms, would be discovered. The 
comparison of the places where they would be found wdth 
other places, the ascertainment of their difference or agree¬ 
ment with existing species, with similar observations made 
elsewhere, would form the rude alphabetical elements, by 
which the age of this elevated, fertile region of the country, 
might be submitted to speculative calculation. But the 
same night which obscures the age of which I speak, obscures 
likewise all the paleontologic data; which by accident will 
come to the light; and be brought forward by musing curi¬ 
osity, to embellish our country’s future philosophy. But, 
seduced as I have been by the interest of the subject, I have 
already trespassed sufficiently upon discussion purely topo¬ 
graphical. 


DIFFERENT FARTS OF THE STATE MODIFY DISEASE. 509 


SECTION III. 

MODIFYING INFLUENCE OF THE THREE DIVISIONS OF THE STATE ON 

DISEASE-OR GEOGRAPHICAL NOSOGENY. 

From the sea-shore to the most elevated and extreme por¬ 
tions of the state, the hygrometrical atmosphere varies; and 
affects more or less the habitual health. The people on the 
level sandy division are stimulated less, live, as I may say, 
less by their atmosphere. The amount of waters stationary 
on their soil, keeps it in a state of unhealthy meteoration 
from which it is never free. If its habitual moisture relaxes, 
the malaria it constantly holds, weakens the general action 
of the living forces, which causes their common health to 
differ so visibly from that of the people of the higher and 
drier districts. The water they use, more impregnated with 
unwholesome mineral substances, is, too, less stimulating. 
Their locality consequently predisposes them more to cuta¬ 
neous diseases, chronic inflammations, ulcerations, glandular 
enlargements, hypertrophies, neuralgic affections, hydropic 
effusions, cedematous swellings, passive hemorrhagic irrita¬ 
tions—and to a life less active, which all observation confirms. 

The people of the second division of the state, which par¬ 
ticipates in the qualities and properties of the country on 
either side, and those above on the face, I have described 
as older in formation, breathe an atmosphere two-thirds of 
the year free from miasma—an atmosphere drier, and conse¬ 
quently barometrically heavier, and more roborant. 

This atmosphere stimulates their blood, rich in its color; 
and all the vital functions play in the fulness of their activity. 
From this plethora of life, excellency of health, they are 
more liable to all diseases of the sthenic form, or to all acute 
and violent inflammations ; especially to those of the internal 
dermic tissues, or of the mucous and serous membranes; 
and are freer from all the morbid affections, which have for 
their predisposing cause, the languor of the living movement. 
Their greater liability to serous and mucous inflammations, is 
occasioned by the more rapid and sudden transitions of the 


510 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


temperature of the weather—depends upon what belongs to 
climate. 

In proportion as their vital activity is more exalted, their 
living forces respond more promptly and energetically to all 
stimulations offered—to the action of the external supporters. 
They carry about them all the power which causes the 
acuteness of pain to be felt—all the fuel in their combustible 
health, which fever burns. It is among them, when they 
come, that acute fevers kill, that epidemics suddenly 
slaughter. Like the Franklin, which silently, and gradu¬ 
ally steals away the lightning from the clouds, and silences 
the paroxysmal thunder, the inhabitants of the low sandy 
division of the state, by becoming habituated to the action 
of the miasma, which continues always in their atmosphere, 
gradually steal away its power, and prevent, to some extent, 
in returning seasons, its explosion into acute fevers. But 
these people of the granite and mixed regions are swept 
away by the periodical miasmatic meteoration of their at¬ 
mosphere, when it comes in its power. 

The second division of the state or mixed region, may be 
considered as nearly equal in health to the section above. 
But its sources of malaria are much more abundant, and 
more active, and when the sickly season arrives, it is here 
the fevers display their greatest strength, and humble most 
the power of medicine. This season occurs toward the 
approach of autumn, when nature’s chemifactions of the 
summer foliage, and insect lives, that crawled, and swarmed, 
poison the air, which through all the preceding seasons had 
continued pure and healthy. 

In the low country, the principal vegetation being ever¬ 
greens, the summer comes there with but few honors. It 
is, consequently, the paludal or stagnant waters on the 
surface there, which feeds the atmosphere with malaria, and 
supports it always in the unhealthy state; while it is the 
chemical decomposition of the great summer growth,* of 

* The silting lip or shallowing of the channels of running streams by the 
clearing of the lands, allows some water to stand occasionally on the low 
grounds, through which they flow, which forms some little exception to 
this general description, as applicable to the actual state of the country. 


MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY AT THE PERIOD OF 1818. 511 

the two higher sections of the state, which meteorizes it, 
and gives to disease dependent upon it, a paroxysmal or 
periodical movement. The great difference, therefore, in 
this respect is—in the one section, death continues always 
at work, but works slowly; while in the other two sections, 
he labors chiefly at certain seasons, but labors in a hurry, 
and with prodigious effect. 

The climate of the middle and upper regions of Georgia, 

however, for the last fourteen years, has, most evidently, 

been undergoing a change decidedly in favor of general 

health; and the periodic seasons of sickness and calamity 

come more seldom, and with much less violence and fatality. 

%/ 

The causes of this change will be noticed in the succeeding 
sections of this work. 

SECTION IV. 

MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE MIDDLE REGIONS AT THE PERIOD OF 1818. 

Were it ours to address invisible powers for sublime 
inspiration, and the sweetness of flowing numbers, to por¬ 
tray the loveliness, grandeur and beauty of nature—of a 
country untouched by the ploughshare or keen edge of steel; 
every hill a magnificent little territory in itself, every valley 
an empire of flowers, every stream a wild harp to scatter 
the minstrelsy of dashing waters and speckled birds on the 
passing winds; every blade of grass, herb, flower, every 
shrub, tree; all living, breathing things in their original 
place progressing in the eternal order in which they started 
at creation—we were sufficiently tempted. But it is ours 
to contemplate this order violated, scattered, ruined—this 
country, personification of a youthful virgin, decorated with 
flowers; the waving trees, her nodding plumes, the limpid 
waters, the tears of her untold love, stript of the vestal dress, 
the bridal honors; and all her tender sighs, remembrances, 
loves trampled in the dust, and forgot. 

How visible the effects of the revolutionary action of a 
civilized people upon a new country ! how conspicuous the 


512 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


imprints of the seal of industry, arts, knowledge! All phi¬ 
losophers, historians, have noticed the great and decided 
changes, a country undergoes, in passing from the wild, 
natural state to the possession and action of civilized man. 
I need not advert here to what Strabo, Diodorus, Caesar, 
Pliny, Tacitus, have said about the alterations which took 
place on cutting down the forests of ancient Gaul, Britain, 
Germany, and other parts of Europe. The alterations more 
or less are the same everywhere; and we have them here 
before our eyes. 

These alterations occur not only in the soil, general face 
of the country, but likewise, in the atmosphere or climate. 

Soil. —By clearing off the growth, and exposing the soil 
to the direct rays of the sun, some modifications immediately 
take place. These are purely chemical; and due to the 
agency of light. As a sort of mesh-work, the roots, which 
had held the soil together, decay, and allow the rain water 
to furrow it into channels more or less deep, washing the 
detritus into the lowest places, and tending to the levelling 
of the common surface. By this method of removal, and 
constant tillage, necessitated especially for the growth of 
the cotton staple, the fruit-bearing soil, in a few years, is 
wasted and exhausted. 

In deep strata, part of the soil is left on the lowest grounds ; 
part is silted or covered up inaccessible to the roots of plants; 
and a portion, deposited on the low grounds of rivers and 
rivulets, shallowing the channels of the latter. This process 
of shallowing is much accelerated by the great amount of 
fallen timber which sinks into their bottoms, or rafting up, 
prevents the free passage of the waters. A heavy rain or 
succession of a few rains now, cause them to overflow their 
banks; and leave a quantity of mud and muddy w^ater on 
the low lands. 

Climate .—The climate suffers change from the reciprocal 
action which exists between vegetation and the atmosphere. 

The trees, by their deep roots, absorb the rain water; shade 
the ground by their foliage ; thus retard its evaporation from 
the surface; and, by the friction they oppose to the motion 


MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY AT THE PERIOD OF 1818 . 513 

of winds, prevent, to some extent, the evaporated portions 
from being carried away. Through the action of the sun’s 
rays during the day, with the oxygen gas, the green leaves 
exhale an abundant moisture, which, with what goes up from 
the earth, descends in heavy dews the succeeding night. 
Thus, a shower falling on a district of country, covered with 
a heavy and dense forest, is repeated in the dewy showers 
each successive night, until growing less and less, it fades 
and disappears. In this way, through nature’s kind provi¬ 
sions, plants are allowed to detain, and enjoy long the mois¬ 
ture brought by the clouds, pabulum so essential to their 
well-being. 

But on this same district of country, all its branching trees 
and shade destroyed, and the naked soil exposed to the burn¬ 
ing rays of the sun, this shower falling would quickly evapo¬ 
rate and be lost. Each passing wind would scatter, bear to 
some other region part of the moisture; and soon there 
would be but little dew at night, showing that all had disap¬ 
peared. The chief storehouses now of future rains, would 
be some distant countries near the great waters, and the ap¬ 
proach of the clouds depend more on the course of the winds 
—■pluvialibus Anstris—unde serenas ventus agat nubes — 

Saepe etiam immensum ccelo venit agmen aquarum, 

Et fcedam glomerant tempestatem imbribus atris 
Collect* ex alto nubes : ruit arduus aether, 

Et nluvia ingenti sata lseta, boumque labores 
Diluit.* 

This tendency of vegetation, therefore, to detain the mois¬ 
ture of falling showers, and contribute to the formation of 
dews, contributes likewise to that of clouds, and the frequency 
of rain. 

The action, then, of the sylva of any country upon its at¬ 
mosphere or climate, is to maintain a greater degree of habi¬ 
tual moisture ; and the felling or cutting it down, must, con¬ 
sequently, lower the hygrometrical rates or produce dryness. 
And, since the evaporation of moisture or water, according to 
Dr. Black, and all chemists since, is a great consumer of heat, 

* Georgica 1.—322 Yirgilii Mar. 

43* 


514 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


not only by the evaporating act, but also by the copious ab¬ 
sorption or conversion of it into the latent state without raising 
the temperature, the sylva of any country, through the excess 
of moisture it maintains, must likewise constitute the climate 
colder. The general or great action of vegetation, accord¬ 
ingly, upon climate, is to make it more moist; and, through 
the laws of evaporation, colder. And, by destroying, or 
clearing it off, the climate becomes drier and warmer. 

These great operations of nature, turned from their an¬ 
cient course through the agency of man upon her, were 
observed by Pomponius Mela, Virgil, Caesar, Pliny, and 
others. They have left their testimony, that as the old states 
of Europe were cleared, and subjected to agriculture, the 
winters became much shorter, and less severe.* In the time 
of Ovid, the Euxine sea sometimes remained frozen two 
whole years without thawing, which it does not now do. 
Pliny assures us the olive and myrtle would not grow in 
Tuscany sub codo aperto . We know, in the actual time, 
abundant crops of these vegetables flourish in that country. 
By a parity of reasoning, we may think our cotton will one 
day grow in colder climates, and flourish beyond the limits, 
where it has ever been planted; and that our isothermal lines 
bearing now about 10° north,f are tending south, and will 
ultimately librate near the same latitudes, in which they tra¬ 
verse the eastern hemisphere. 

Observation and experience show, since the woodlands of 
Georgia have been so much cut down, and cleared up, long 
and oppressive droughts have become more frequent, the 
seasons more irregular; and, upon the whole, the climate 
hotter and drier. Every thing evinces, our rains now de¬ 
pend more than formerly upon the fickle course of the winds. 
Hence their greater irregularity. Those beautiful little 
clouds, born of the breath of flowers, and the wide-spread 

* The object of an article in the Edinburgh Review of some years since, 
was to establish, that the climate of Great Britain is still growing milder ; 
and that vegetables beyond the lines north flourish well, where formerly 
they would not grow. 

t Estimate of Humboldt. 


MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY AT THE PERIOD OF 1818. 515 

\ 

foliage of the country, and tempered with honey,* more sel¬ 
dom now darken our summer horizon, and revive the droop¬ 
ing earth. The rains continue to fall in torrents, long as the 
winds continue to blow from the pluvial region, and chang- 
ing, the ground with all the industry bestowed upon it, con¬ 
tinues to burn as the fiery globe of the sun passes over 
it, in some seasons, threatening to bring with it the gaunt 
image of famine. 

Only fifteen years ago, this part of the country in which 
I write was a continued forest where the rights of nature 
had remained unviolated. After vernal showers then, the 
dews at night were so heavy as to leave traces in the roads 
and other solid places, where they had flowed. But no such 
phenomenon is now to be observed. The action of the indus¬ 
try of man, therefore, in changing the climate, commences 
when the first tree is felled. 

To what extent this change may be carried by such ac¬ 
tion or agency in diminishing the intense cold of winter, 
shortening its season; the drying of the climate; elevating 
the mean annual temperature; widening the indigenous 
regions of plants, &c., I think, is not fully known. The 
speculations of philosophers on this interesting topic are 
very much at variance. Accurate observations extending 
through along period of time; the statistics of countries 
proper to be experimented upon, made out, and carefully 
preserved; these statistics occasionally compared together, 
to ascertain the progress of actual changes, would form data, 
upon which truth might be speculatively approached. This 
subject thus investigated, might yield fresh treasures, and 
precise many truths of natural science; might animate, and 
offer modifications to industry and commerce; and give new 
directions to the enterprizes and policy of nations. But 
this section has already soared with us beyond our limits. 

Nearly one-half of the woodland, in the middle regions of 
Georgia, in the year 1818, had been cleared, and the soil 

* This honey descends with the dew, and is visible on the leaves of the 
trees, forming a thick, shining covering after the dew has evaporated by the 
sun. But being more diluted, it is not so visible after the shower. 


516 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


reduced to active and vigorous cultivation. I have fallen 
upon this date; because then commenced the scourge of 
fevers I am soon to describe, which continued through a 
successive series of years; the most severe and calamitous 
that ever was experienced before or since in this, or I believe, 
any other part of the state. The country, at this period, 
therefore, was exposed to all the new causes of disease which 
originate in the transition from the natural or woodland to 
the agricultural state; and the climate had passed through 
the consequent revolutions. From the length of time, the 
soil had been settled, we may suppose, these causes now 
fully developed, were operating in their greatest intensity, 
and widest sphere of activity. So that if Baglivi, Praxis 
Medica, had room to say—“Scribo hsec in aere Romano,” I 
may say in strictest truth—Hanc morborum catenam, quos, 
ssevissimam, scripturus sum, nitida terra Georgiana, ortam 
esse. Solo fructifero nati, et solis calore vehemente, hie 
cunabula fuerunt; et hie volabant coelorum per tractus lu- 
cidos. 

SECTION V. 

STATE OF SOCIETY. 

No stage of civilization presents human nature with so 
many attractions as that in which intellectual cultivation, 
truth, virtue and simplicity are the forming elements. It 
is the stage, in which the heart acts freely, the only office 
of the tongue, to speak its emotions;—the stage, in which 
man loves man the most; and in which, the power of her 
who softens manners operates to the greatest effect. 

The novelists of the last age have evinced good taste and 
judgment, in selecting the fair objects of their stories from 
this calendar. It is next that below, which brings forth 
woman with that surprising beauty, and peculiar loveliness, 
which immortalize her in the pastoral songs of her country; 
and, in which she comes down time so fresh and fair in the 
Bucolics of antiquity. 


STATE OF SOCIETY. 


517 


In great capitals and large cities, where the sensibility 
is in constant friction, the passions prematurely develop, 
weaken the growth of the mind, pervert its faculties; and 
what the heart feels, the tongue dare not speak. Civiliza¬ 
tion advancing here, soon retrogrades, and is lost in corrup¬ 
tion. The other extreme is untutored, unsoftened rusticity. 
The point, therefore, at which civilization culminates, or 
the medium point, is that of perfection. 

The fertility of the soil, general beauty of the country— 
all the physical and moral elements of the people, whose 
history I here notice, were the most favorably disposed for 
improvement, of which they did not fail to make the proper 
use. At the date, on which I have fixed, the soil, not yet 
exhausted, was in the flower of its strength; and the great 
staple it so freely produced, commanded at the home mar¬ 
kets from twenty-five to thirty cents per pound. It then 
brought to the possession of its owners the choicest products 
of foreign art and industry, and attracted upon them the 
riches, opulence and magnificence of the world. 

Each tenant, the owner of the soil, filled the place of Emir 
of the domain. Independent through industry, and the re¬ 
sources on which they relied, they passed their time in the 
bosom of their families; and in tranquillity enjoyed the ele¬ 
gances and pleasures of life. Here happiness had a tangible 
form. The heart, in the medium of civilization, breathed 
and lived freely in the open atmosphere of nature. It might 
be said, if in Greece and Italy, immodesty profaned the altars 
of the Cyprian Beauty, and the vestal fires were put out, 
kindled here in a country like this, they must burn forever. 
M. Tourtelle* has said—“the habitual moral sentiments, 
as they are good or bad, mould the face into beauty or ugli¬ 
ness.” It was on the side of beauty here, they exerted their 
plastic power. Boileau and Racine would have turned from 
their Tuscan beauties, to contemplate many of the fair spe¬ 
cimens which grew up among these peaceful and happy 
families. Indeed, it is only under similar moral and physi- 


* Hygiene. 


518 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


cal circumstances, that woman comes forth with all her 
rays, and shines in the sphere of nature. 

Prosperous by its trade and enterprise, Milledgeville 
enjoyed private and public happiness. During each suc¬ 
cessive season of legislation, it exhibited much gaiety and 
festal mirth. In the tasty balls, showed the country’s fair 
image, and the public prosperity. 

All the passions, moral sentiments of the people, therefore, 
were favorably disposed to the maintenance of health, and, 
armed, as I may say, against the attacks and inroads of dis¬ 
ease—against those dreadful fevers, I am to notice in the 
sequel, which, at this time, made their rupture. 


CHAPTER II. 

MEDICAL HISTORY—PARTICULAR MODES OF PRACTICE- 

PRACTITIONERS. 

Vexatious! a late writer* tracing the history of the me¬ 
dicine of the world, has dispatched that of the United States 
in a few short paragraphs, mentioned few other names than 
those of Miller, Rush and Jackson; and regarded all our 
healing art, as the mere transatlantic echo of the British 
schools. 

Since within about two centuries or a little more, the 
whole of the inhabited northern, and a large portion of our 
meridional America, have been rapidly, and successively 
subjected to the great civilized action of man, producing all 
those changes of physical geography and climate I have 
mentioned, and developing almost at once all the factitious 
causes of disease; it may be safely affirmed, there is no 
country in the world where observation has been more 
active and fecund, and where physicians have been better 
disciplined in the great field of experience and disease. 

* Broussais Examen- 




HISTORY—MODES OF PRACTICE—PRACTITIONERS. 519 

Like its maladies, the medicine of America, therefore, is 
entitled to originality. 

Making some allowance for the newness of the country, 
and deficiency of general learning, this general remark, as 
to experience and disease , applies emphatically to the state 
for which I write. 

Medical education .—In the same way, as the physicians 
of the North once resorted commonly to the older institutions 
of Europe, our people went for medical education to the 
schools of public instruction of their own common country. 
Among these, that of Philadelphia rose first; and has con¬ 
tinued ever since to maintain itself the principal medical 
institution of the Union. It was to this school the most of 
our scholars resorted. At the time middle Georgia was 
settling, Dr. Rush was a popular teacher; and his views 
and opinions (branches of the fruitful stem of Brunonian 
vitalism) delivered in the warmth of eloquence, became 
pretty much diffused throughout the medical continent. 
His instructions, with those of the school of which he was 
professor, formed largely the basis, on which then rested all 
the operative medicine of our state, which laid any claims 
to teaching and learning. 

Deficient in languages, faultily more encouraged than, 
condemned by Dr. Rush, and general elementary knowledge 
at that period, many of the aspirants to the profession were 
illy prepared for the lectures they sought, and the learned 
halls of medical science. A large number prosecuting their 
studies, remained only a solitary season in the lecture room; 
and returned home to be flung in practice, upon the field of 
cruel and energetic disease, which I have reserved for the 
next and succeeding chapters. Short preparatory study 
begun under every disadvantage; and a short sojourn at the 
medical institution, left them, on entering their professional 
career, close to absolute, original ignorance. The great 
majority, therefore, did not come forth ready moulded by 
the hands of the Alma Mater, but were shaped to physic on 
the actual field of practice. 

There were, however, a goodly number, armed with the 


520 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


great force of general science, who exhausted the stores of 
medical knowledge, which had been drawn from the old 
stores of Europe; those, which had been added of our own 
country; and prasticed by the lights which had been kin¬ 
dled. 

These Alumni, returned home, and entered on the arena 
of disease, soon saw what passed, and was deemed medi¬ 
cal truth and experience in the northern United States, and 
Europe, was often here any thing other than medical truth 
and experience. 

But besides those who had studied medicine in form, as in 
all countries, there was a host of other curers of disease, 
who made up the prodigiosum medicorurn corpus. Some 
of these administered only to particular diseases, for which 
they had discovered or obtained the secret of infallible reme¬ 
dies. The malice and ambition of others were directed only 
against a single ailment , for which they were famous. Some, 
in all cases, relied on deep and cruel mercurial salivations. 
Among many, even, who claimed to be educated, this mode 
of practice in fevers, was held in great favor, and lavished 
on their patients. So greatly was this drug formerly used, 
repentant mothers, in our day, have surprised their innocent 
children grown up, weeping in the toilet over the ruined 
features, which the graces had fashioned, and meant to be 
handsome. 

Others knew the hidden virtues of unknown roots and 
plants, potent destroyers of many disorders. Lastly came 
with her fragrant herbs, the knowing midwife. With her 
warm teas, she stopped the flow of blood from wounds; 
relieved headaches, lumbagos—with the same remedy 
warmed the cold of agues; quenched the heat of fevers; pro¬ 
voked the catamenia; or suspended uterine hemorrhage. 

But since that day, I may add, the means of obtaining 
classic knowledge, arts, sciences, have undergone regular 
organization—have everywhere sprung up with their facili¬ 
ties; and are accessible to all ranks of aspirants. And medi¬ 
cine, always in the rear in all ages and countries, begins 


CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 


521 


\ 


now to elevate herself, and lift up her domes for instruction 
in our own state. 


CHAPTER III. 

GENERAL OUTLINE—CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 

The supernatural origin of disease has become supersti¬ 
tion. In the actual state of knowledge, all the external 
causes admitted, are contagion, atmospheric vicissitudes, 
improper aliment, and poisons or miasmata. The latter, 
very little or not at all accessible to chemical physics, are 
known only by their effects on the living constitution. 

It is not unreasonable, in progressive time, like the great 
face of the earth, the great body of the atmosphere may be 
subject to decays and renovations; and that,besides aqueous 
and miasmatic meteoration, the changes, which thus occur, 
may operate on life so closely connected with and dependent 
upon it. For, it will be seen just below, that the same mi¬ 
asma is not equally active in all times in producing the 
sequences which manifest its presence; from which maybe 
inferred the concurrence of other causes co-operating with 
it, to which are due its paroxysmal activity and mortality. 
These causes, I think, observation has confirmed, act inde¬ 
pendently of the hygrometrical states; and must attach to 
such changes as I have suggested. 

The chemical return of organic bodies to the mineral state, 
is the conspicuous, acknowledged cause of miasma. In the 
felling of the timbers, alterations of soil and climate, presented 
under medical geography, and the subsequent sections of 
the first chapter, I have described all the sources, so far as 
we are concerned here. 

w 

In a few years, however, these felled timbers disappear; 
and the poisoned atmosphere regains its purity, in the 
changes it has undergone. Nor are the miasms, as experi- 
44 



522 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


ence shows, thus produced, the adjuvant causes inactive 
while they last, always productive of much disease and ill 
health. It is only in their complicated action, as I have 
noticed, that they w 7 aste life so rapidly. At one period or 
other, in the change from the woodland to the agricultural 
state, in this great complicated movement, they are sure to 
pass over the country, and display themselves in the giant 
form of disease. It was evidently in this manner they were 
progressing over the middle regions of our state, in the 
development of their greatest power, in 1818, and the eight 
succeeding years; the time, at which, will date below our 
description of particular diseases. 

According to the observations of Dr. D. B. Searcy, in 
Mississippi, four hundred miles southwest of us, year 1831, 
a miasmatic form of disease was raging, very similar in cha¬ 
racter and violence to that w T hich commenced in our state 
in the year 1818. The difference in the time of attack cor¬ 
responds very well with the difference in the dates of the 
settlement of the two parts of the common country. But 
this coincidence may be regarded as accidental, since miasma 
always appears to wait for opportunity, or the adjuvant action 
of other causes, before it slaughters in the epidemic form of 
disease. 

After the destruction of the timber, or the clearing of the 
country begins, from the above circumstance, it is not possible 
to fix upon the time, when the fevers, wdiich depend upon 
miasma thus produced, shall be developed, and come forth 
in their greatest strength. We may think, however, the 
rapidity with which the clearing goes on, or the amount of 
surface exposed in a given time, may have some influence. 
But there are so many circumstances, which counteract, 
modify, foment the causes of such diseases, mentioned by 
Morton, Sydenham, Pringle, Jackson, Cleghorn, a host of 
writers, that scarcely any thing appertaining to them can 
be subjected to rigid calculation. The dynamical properties 
or laws of malaria, and its modifiers, fecund sources of specu¬ 
lation to physicians, are unknown. 

Notwithstanding, I think, after the climate has undergone 


CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 


523 


all the changes from clearing, and cultivation of the soil, 
we can plainly distinguish the line, which divides between, 
the diseases dependent upon these changes, and those of a 
different or epidemic origin, from which no country ever 
becomes entirely liberated. Thus, after the period of 1826, 
Milledgeville and the ambient country began to enjoy tran¬ 
quillity. This tranquillity lasted without much interruption, 
through the eleven succeeding years; when some intermit- 
tents vexed from causes, as I have said, which ever remain 
to urge untimely death. 

The changes in the climate, ut supra, must commence 
with the settlement of the country. From all I have been 
able to observe, the miasmatidce, which are the consequences, 
begin mild at first, and operate only sporadically : and it 
is not until some years are passed, and considerable clear¬ 
ings have been made, they make their appearance. In pro¬ 
portion as the soil is subjected to cultivation, and the atmo¬ 
spheric changes advance, allowing for the irregularities I 
have mentioned, they become more frequent and display 
occasionally more force. 

In this manner, the diseases, which occurred in regular 
form, from the settlement of Milledgeville, and the situate 
region in the year 1805, until 1818, according to statement 
of the practitioners, varied at different times in quality and 
intensity, so as to demand a change or modification of treat¬ 
ment, as will be seen below. Occurring in a country, in 
the main naturally healthy, they were not frequent visitors 
for the first few years; and when they came, were easily 
subdued. From 1810 to 1818, they became more compli¬ 
cated; put on many new symptoms, and upon the whole, 
their general strength was increased. Between these years, 
in the city especially, they caused a great consumption of 
infantile life. But it was not until about the year 1818, the 
time when our observations commenced, that the adjuvant 
modifiers of miasma put forth their action, produced that 
state of the atmosphere called by Sydenham, “ unhealthy 
constitution,” and gave to these fevers their greatest flight. 
From this last date, they increased regularly in power; 


524 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


assumed new forms of greater malignity; and reached the 
culminating point in 1821-2. 

In the towns and in the country, they raged with great 
and frightful mortality; and those who escaped from their 
attacks, did not remain free from the influences of the causes 
which produced them. After 1822, they began to diminish 
gradually in violence, and their assaults were not so uni¬ 
versal. Their force exhausted with great regularity; and, 
in 1826, they quieted, as already noticed, appearing after¬ 
wards only sporadically and rarely. 

If previously to 1818, they occasionally appeared in new 
and more malignant types, in the succeeding years, they 
would again become milder. So that their regular strength 
was only increased in the average of time, and not continu¬ 
ously, as it was after this date, until 1821-2. 

The vegetation, which had been destroyed in former 
years, at these last dates, was pretty completely reduced to 
the mineral state; and the new clearings then making were 
nothing compared to those of these years. Consequently, 
the sources of actual malaria were much fewer, and greatly 
exhausted, at the time, when these fevers rose to their acme. 
At the moment when the climate had passed through all 
the great changes from culture—at the moment their causes 
were ceasing, and they were about being extinguished for¬ 
ever, like Sampson of sacred history, they were the most 
revengeful and homicidal. How can such phenomena be 
accounted for, without admitting the simultaneous action of 
some great and general change in the atmosphere fecundat¬ 
ing miasma? 

But my sole object being here to produce a faithful pic¬ 
ture, present a record of facts, occurrences, steering far as 
possible from all speculation, I can only give the subject 
such notice as is demanded for faithfulness. 

The meteoration of miasma is an invisible phenomenon. 
But there are some perceptible phenomena connected with 
the history of the atmosphere, which show, that its different 
parts exist in the closest union, and in a state, the most 
favourable for the intercommunication of activity, and, that 


CHARACTER OF DISEASE. 


525 


a movement begun in any part, can quickly expand to parts 
very remote, bringing about a general and special condition. 
The igneous meteoration of 1831, which I have mentioned 
in the Philosophy of Animated Existence, and which, from 
all we know, was more or less visible at the same moment 
'over the western hemisphere, and the great epidemics, 
which occasionally rage over such vast geographical spaces, 
are phenomena of this sort. 

When iEtna thunders, Vesuvius is silent. But not so 
with the hot caverns, in which death prepares his mixtures. 
They all make their uproar at the same time. Accordingly 
when our miasmatidse, 1818, began to be animated with 
unwonted mortific violence, the yellow fever had already 
commenced to elevate itself, and strike heavy blows on New 
Orleans, Mobile; on all our maritime cities; and, as the 
medical journals of that day show, on the West India 
islands. The quarantine laws, pretty generally throughout 
the world of civilized commerce, were then rigidly enforced. 
And at the time, 1821-2, our affliction and distress were at 
the greatest height in middle Georgia, this same fever just 
before, 1820, was exerting its most destructive force on 
Charleston, and on Savannah, with all the other towns on 
our own immediate shores. 

Upon this view of the subject, we can but look upon some 
change in the great aerial sphere, as operating universally 
upon the miasmata of different places, countries, stimulating 
them to general exacerbative activity. And, upon a gene¬ 
ralization of all the facts, it is philosophical to regard the 
yellow fever of the sea-shore and great rivers; the icterus, 
icteric affections, and “ cold plague,” as it was commonly 
called among us; and the bilious diarrhoeas and mild inter- 
mittents of the up country—all as the varied expression of 
the same thing, the same disease, modified by the peculiari¬ 
ties of the miasmata of different places or local causes of 
countries. The concert, general unity of the action, in the 

highest degree, favor this view. 

I will observe here—After all the researches that have 
been made upon malaria , epidemics and their philosophy , the 

44* 


526 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


amount of practical and useful truth we yet know is ex¬ 
tremely limited. The subject challenges the patronage and 
liberality of nations. In order to precise the measurement 
of a degree of longitude, the governments of France and 
England, some years since, sent philosophers, at the same 
time, to the two polar seas, to observe the celebrated transit of 
Venus. In imitation, it would be worthv the ambition and 
philanthropy of nations, in subserving the cause of general 
humanity, to send out men, everywhere, competent to ob¬ 
serve the transit of disease when raging over the world. 

In this manner a vast amount of accurate observations 
might be made, and collected together, unachievable by indi¬ 
vidual enterprize, which wrnuld fling new light on these great 
diseases or epidemics occasionally so destructive to the spe¬ 
cies, and arm medicine against them, for their prevention 
or mollification. 

But to conclude this chapter.—If the nature and history 
of disease be not as I say, what are the causes since the year 
1826, on which depends the comparative exemption of the 
country from all those varying forms of fever which I have 
mentioned? The eye of the stranger now visiting the 
cemetery of our capital, is not struck with the vast dispro¬ 
portion of the infantile sepulchres. The hearts of mothers, 
nature’s tenderest, noblest works, are not sown thick in this 
hallowed spot of earth as formerly. Indeed, early after the 
settlement of Milledgeville, as noticed, death watched con¬ 
stantly round the cradle to plunder. At first, he struck furi¬ 
ously at posterity, but afterwards began to strike at all. Then 
the mother lay together with her infant in the tomb, the 
father close by their side ; the schoolboy and his little sister : 
the lover and she he loved, with all her glossy locks. Then, 
Sabbath days, came moving slowly into the church, the dark 
trains of the drapery of mourning, the long black veils 
darkening where they approached. Many heads leant gently 
forward, showed the features in the touching beauty and 
whiteness of sorrow. The humility of death contagious, 
deepened, in adoring assemblies, the natural awe and solem¬ 
nity of religion. The value of life so greatly diminished. 


SICKNESS OF 1818 AND THE SEASONS. 


527 


the tedious cares of the toilet were forgot; the young man 
entered the door of the church as the grave in years, and she 
blushing came in as the aged of her sex, not revealing at 
once all the sweet treasures of her beauty. 

But what, I say, has produced this happy revolution, has 
curbed the furious power of death, and spread abroad the 
joy and tranquillity of public health since 1826. It can only 
be, that the state of the atmosphere has been resolved, or the 
cause, purely atmospheric, which foments the action of mi¬ 
asma, has disappeared; and that the country, becoming drier, 
warmer and more naked from culture, has become freer from 
local febrific causes.—“La culture,” says M. Virey, “ apporte 
beau coup de changement dans la nature de chaque contree, 
en defrichant les forets, dessecliant les marecages ou don- 
nant un cours regie aux eaux, en remuant les terres, essar- 
tant les compagnesremplies d’ herbes inutiles.—Les terrains 
les plus deboises, les plus nus, deviennent aussi les plus secs 
et les plus chauds,”*—and the climate, for the same reasons, 
more healthy, or healthier, from being nakeder, and drier. 


CHAPTER IV. 

SICKNESS OF THE YEAR 1818. 

What distinguished this year the most, was the long and 
oppressive drought which prevailed. 

SECTION I, 

THE SEASONS. 

4 

Vegetation sprung forth early, and the little flowers, be¬ 
fore their wonted time, enameled the ground. 

Solvitur acris Hyems, grata vice veris et Favoni. 


* Diet, des Sciences, tom. v, 358. 






528 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


When it was dry, the wind blew from the northwest, as it 
always does in our climate; but turning to the south, our 
pluvial region, it brought close to the frost of winter the ver¬ 
nal showers. 

The effusive South 

Warms the wide air, and o’er the void of Heaven 
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent. 

These showers were very regular through March and April, 
but never fell, as is common, in torrents sufficiently great to 
cause the running waters to overflow much their banks. 
The spring set in warm almost from the first. The early 
days of March, was heard the first solemn thunder—that 
clock which strikes in Heaven, and mournfully reminds us 
of the ceaseless motion of time. Soon the jay, the thrush 
and the lark were heard to halloo loud from the woods; and 
the mocking-bird was seen fluttering up above the tree-tops 
in mid-air suspended, in the joy and ecstasy of his song, so 
justly, eloquently described by our ornithologist Wilson. 

During the first three months, after the clearing away of 
the showers, the sky very frequently assumed that deep 
cerulean aspect so peculiar to our austral climate. While 
this sky lasts, generally two or three days, the sun glitters 
in the most insufferable splendor; his rays seem to foam out 
of his disk with the whiteness of snow. The horizontal air 
when he is up, shows in dark transparency. The eye ap¬ 
pears to penetrate easily infinite space, and catch a glimpse 
of the mural boundaries, those high blue shores, along which 
glides the river of time. 

While these pure days of light continue, if the tongue be 
furred, it is apt to clean; the body feels light and airy, every 
thing manifesting a free expansion of the living movement. 
The mind ecstasied, is carried away in a sea of quick and 
rapid thought. 

The season progressed beautifully until May, when soon 
the last shower fell, and the sun rained uninterrupted fire, 
until late in October. The earth dried to the depth of about 
fifty feet, and many fountains, and streams failed. All life 
relaxed and grew heavy under the continued heat. The 


BILIOUS FEVER OF JUNE AND JULY. 529 

birds in the woods and hedges did not sing till late at night. 
Fahrenheit’s thermometer ranged during the summer from 
85° to 105°. When August came, the sky appeared turbid 
and thick, and of a deep bronze color. This appearance 
continued through the month; and faded away in Septem¬ 
ber, when most of the fountains and streams, which had 
remained dry during the summer, began to flow again of 
themselves from the increased weight of the atmosphere. 
This long drought has only been equaled by that of 1839, 
which year was extremely healthy. 


SECTION II. 

BILIOUS FEVER OF JUNE AND JULY. 

This opusculum has already extended beyond expecta¬ 
tion. Our object with these fevers here, will be to seize 
only on their most prominent phenomena—gather up enough 
of them to make them known. Nor shall I quadrate them 
with the fevers of authors. You may examine through the 
Nosographie Philosophique of Pinel, the arrangements of 
Stoll, Selle—of those most approved; here and there you 
will find the symptoms, scraps of them, but nowhere the en¬ 
tire form together, as they appeared among us. 

The bilious fever became prevalent early in June, gene¬ 
rally in the angeiotenic or inflammatory form. All the irri¬ 
tations of the mucous and serous membranes, wdiich had 
occurred during the spring, were accompanied with copious 
biliary secretions, manifesting a very excitable state of the 
liver. 

Often now’ the bile would flow spontaneously and copious¬ 
ly into the prunes vies, and pass off by exciting strongly the 
defecative movement. In these cases ordinarily, the phe¬ 
nomena of fever would be but very feebly developed; and 
the sufferers recover health in some days without medicine. 
But in some instances, the bile w 7 ould excite both violent 
catharsis and emesis; and, without interference, the patients 
w r ould vomit, purge, exhaust and die promptly. In others 




530 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


again, the liver would secrete sparingly, but in abundance 
sufficient to exasperate prodigiously the already irritated 
gastro-intestinal mucous surface. In this pathological state 
would be declared either the one or the other of two very 
distinct series of phenomena, called bilious colic and bilious 
fever. 

1. Colic .—All the organs subordinated to the trisplancli¬ 
nic medullary system, in this form of disease, when severe, 
were thrown into the most violent and persevering excite¬ 
ment, subverting all the natural functions. The alimentary 
organ contracted on itself; all peristaltic motion was com¬ 
pletely suspended. The muscles of the abdomen, drawn 
firmly and irregularly tight, gave to it the touch of a solid, 
knotty substance. Respiration, of course, was much im¬ 
peded. The pain was insupportably great, manifested by 
the constant and loud cries of the patient; and the coun¬ 
tenance was indicative of the most frightful suffering. Soon 
the pulse grew frequent, small, and feeble; and a copious, 
cold, viscid perspiration wet the whole body. And, in spite 
of the energetic interference of all art, in some instances, 
these abdominal muscles held their firm grasp, till late in 
approaching death. 

Sometimes, the cerebro-spinal nervous system, and the 
organs in relation, were drawn into complication; and played 
in this mortific whirlpool of the functions of nutritive life. 
Then the voluntary muscles spasmed, and the head and 
knees would be more or less approximated, which no com¬ 
mon force could separate. I have often shuddered at the 
recital of the efforts which had been made by sympathizing, 
pitying spectators, to straighten their friends thus distorted. 
The great function of innervation gave way promptly; the 
nutritive or chemical functions of the organism appeared to 
suspend from the commencement of the attack; and the 
capillary blood easily yielded its elements to secretion, as 
manifested by the serosity of the perspiration. The organic 
edifice reeled under the first blow of these colics ; and tot¬ 
tered to desolation. The loud cry of the sufferer soon grew 
less and less, as the perspiration became more abundant, 


/ 


BILIOUS FEVER OF JUNE AND JULY. 


531 


cold and serous; the dulness of slumber was coming apace; 
and the voice faded away into a low moaning, as the bell, 
which afterwards announced the preparations for sepulture. 
From ten to seventy-two hours after the attack, death or 
recovery was established. 

Fever .—Fever, however, was the most common form, in 
which the miasmatic poison displayed itself on the vital 
economy. The fever, of which I have spoken above, so 
closely associated in cunabulis with the constipated colic, 
was emphatically the fever of August and September; and 
was seldom met with in the early part of the summer. I 
shall notice it presently. 

The bilious fever of this year, I have said, commenced 
in June. Besides the continued form, the common remit 
tent and intermittent types, were the quotidian and tertian. 
All the quartans, I believe, which continued during the 
succeeding winter, were degenerations of these two types, 
in cases where the fever had been badly cured, or cured 
without due depletion. The access generally came on with 
a chill in the forenoon; and the exacerbation exhausted 
itself the succeeding night. Copious throwings-up of bile 
announced the transition from the cold to the pyrexial stage. 
When the type was remittent, only a slight cooling occurred 
in place of the chill, and the fever passed on in the same 
revolution. 

During this and the largest part of the succeeding month, 
in the exacerbation, the unity of the functions, or the consen¬ 
sus universus , was maintained; the vital forces expanded 
freely their action; and all the great organs responded libe¬ 
rally to the exaltation of the general movement. This state 
of the functions, however, would continue but for a few 
days, or a few revolutions, when these fevers were aban¬ 
doned to themselves. They would generally soon kill or 
cure. Curing—they left the liver and spleen hypertrophied, 
the digestive mucous membrane phlogosed, dragging after 
them a long train of evils. Or sometimes metamorphosed 
into the quartan type, they revived, and run a long career. 
Destroying life—the sovereign function of the biain ex- 







532 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


hausted, failed first; manifested by indisposition to all mo¬ 
tion, perpetual, dreamy sleep, delirium.—In universal pros¬ 
tration, death came speedily. From the attack, the motion 
of these fevers, therefore, generally, was quick and rapid to 
the termination; bringing the functions to a partial suspen¬ 
sion in the cooling and cold stages, but elevating them to 
prodigious intensity in the exacerbation. Patients sick but 
a few days, and recovering, sustained a great loss of the liv¬ 
ing substance, manifesting the brisk activity of the function 
of absorption, by which they were attended. Often, those 
which were intermittent, finished their revolution in a warm 
and copious perspiration. 

In their generalizations too exclusive, Clutterbuck and 
Broussais each founded fever on the local inflammation of 
two separate tissues; the one, on that of the brain, the other, 
of the stomach. In these fevers, both would have found 
abundant aliment to nutrify their hypotheses; for these two 
organs were the seats of the greatest disorder and torment. 


SECTION III. 

FEVER OF AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER. 

The natural tendency of long-continued heats and drought 
is to weaken the forces of life, diminish the general intensity 
of their action ; and produce leaning by provoking the con¬ 
stant flow of perspiration, especially among the laboring 
classes. All fountain water becomes more highly impreg¬ 
nated with mineral substances, and more irritating to the 
'primce vice. 

I know not the nature of the meteorism or bronze-covering 
of the August sky. The red flame of the sun behind it was 
somewhat quieted, but still burnt. Things below wore a 
gloomy and lugubrious aspect. The crimsoned disk of the 
sun was sometimes visible to the naked eye, even near the 
meridian. Imagination looked upon this sky as the palace 
of death; and the color, as harmonizing with the blood of 
mortals, whose immolation had commenced. About the ter- 


FEVER OF AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER. 


533 


mination of the meteorism, in the evening, when the moon 
was absent, the zodiacal light appeared, and shone beauti¬ 
fully. But I do not know that such phenomena are associ¬ 
ated in the causation of our good or evil. 

From the debilitating effects of heat, and constant action 
of miasma, it was manifest when August and September 
came, the synergies of the living system were weakened; 
or if I may so express it, the functions were held together 
by a much feebler force. So that the same fevers, the same 
in their principal elements, which, during June and July, 
had produced such surexcitation, or expanded so freely 
the general movement of the organism, increased now in 
power and malignity, did not generally rally this movement. 
The organs inharmonious, struck by these fevers, in the 
worst forms did not any longer resound in their wonted tones, 
and each articulate justly the blow received. Some expended 
their strength with fury; some fell into apparent inaction. 
In the midst of the exacerbation, some parts as the head, a 
portion of the body, burnt with raging heat; others, as the 
upper and lower extremities, were frozen as with ice. In 
the face, a death-like paleness alternated rapidly with a tran¬ 
sient blush. The maddened functions, armed for mutual 
destruction, fought against one another. They were a house 
divided against itself. The great sovereignties of the nervous 
and arterial functions, which hold all living forces, actions 
in their equipoise, fell prostrate. All order, all rule in the 
economy was violated; and, in universal dysnomy, death 
obtained an easy victory. 

These are the fevers mentioned above, so closely connected 
in natu with spasmodic, bilious colic. Early in the sum¬ 
mer, we saw the living organism respond promptly and 
freely to the stimulus they offered. The secretions generally 
were easy and abundant. The functions in the intermittent 
form, played through the different phases of the disease, and 
returned regularly to the same starting point, with the 
gradual loss of power at each revolution, the periodic move¬ 
ment being equable in its entire course. But now very few 

45 


i 



534 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


cases completely intermitted. The traces of periodicity were 
often only visible; some slight remissions occurring in all. 

The chylopoietic secretions were suspended, or took place 
only sparingly. The tongue wore a dark brown covering, 
the papillos much developed. The mouth was dry—un¬ 
quenchable thirst—continual tormenting sickness of the 
stomach—pain of the head—sense of breaking the back and 
leg-bones—constant jactitation on the first days of the attack. 
The pulse frequent, corded, the pulsations soon ran into 
one another, became more or less continuous—creeping. 
The venous blood drawn, was very dark; and so thick, that 
it required a free orifice to flow. The alvine evacuations 
often had the appearance of a black sanies ; and sometimes, 
that of coarsely-pow r dered charcoal slightly moistened. 

If they did not commence, these fevers, in a great num¬ 
ber of cases, soon fell into the adynamic state. Then the 
patient affrighted by spectral illusions cried out aloud, and 
started up from his bed. In a moment he slept again, and 
talked incoherently. Tormented under such complicated 
ills, he enjoyed but little repose. Quieting, he dosed a few 
moments in delirium; then waking suddenly, greedily asked 
for water, and the time of day. 

But winter coming with the frost, health returned to all 
the living, except to those I have mentioned, who had suf¬ 
fered deep lesions of the internal organs, and were oppressed 
by those outlaws of the medical government, the rebellious 
quartans. 

The fevers of which I have just sketched the outline, 
combine some of the symptoms of the febris infiamatoria 
of Stoll, febris continua infiamatoria of Frank, and fievre 
angeiotenique of Pinel, with those of the Jievre adiynamique 
ataxique of MM. Pinel and Roux, the typhodes , asthenic , 
adynamic fever of numerous authors. 


TREATMENT OF THE FEVERS. 


535 


) 


SECTION IV. 

SYNOPSIS OF THE TREATMENT. 

The different groups of symptoms—series of morbid 
phenomena just sketched, may, I think, all be regarded as 
the varied results of the same external causes operating with 
modified intensity under changed circumstances, and one 
in causation. 


ARTICLE I. 

Bilious vomiting and purging. 

Early in the onset of the disease, by its violent and con¬ 
stant contractions, the alimentary organ promptly expelled 
the ingesta. Theu the bile was discharged without mix¬ 
ture. I have often been astonished at the great quantities 
of this substance which could be secreted, and thrown off in 
a few short hours. The duodenum generally appeared to 
form the axis of the double motion, which was often syn¬ 
chronous; and it was very rare that true symptoms of the 
Iliac Passion occurred. In the worst forms of the disease, 
when the stomach was not supplied with bile in the inter¬ 
vals, it contracted firmly on its cardiac orifice, and remained 
almost constantly in the attitude of emesis. 

In this hyperstlienia of the nutritive organs, the skin and 
extremities became very cold. Every thing manifested an 
instantaneous and rapid decay of all living power in the 
balance of the organism. The treatment commenced at 
this moment; a large blister was placed over the epigastrium; 
sinapisms, hot fomentations, whatever could reanimate the 
circulation, and the warmth, w T ere applied to the surface. 
Laudanum in drachm doses was administered, and repeated 
at short intervals until vomiting and defecation were arrested. 
To produce these results, in not a few cases, an ounce of the 
strongest laudanum was necessitated in a short period of 
time; and w T hen given as demanded, never produced stupe¬ 
faction or sleep. Often it happened, the slightest distension 



536 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


of the stomach by gum water, any drink, would cause instan¬ 
taneous vomiting. Then the laudanum was given without 
dilution, absolute rest for a while was imposed on the sto¬ 
mach, and the sufferer encouraged to bear the torments of 
thirst. When it could be retained, brandy toddy was freely 
administered with the narcotic stimulus. 

The stomach and bowels thus quieted, the patient took 
freely rice water, cold mucilage of elm or gum Arabic, 
acidulated drinks. Stimulating enemata were employed to 
provoke the natural peristaltic movement; and recovery 
sometimes took place without any further symptoms. But 
often it happened on the following day, after calm had been 
restored, it was manifest the brain and circulatory system 
had sympathetically become excited by this entero-gastro- 
hepatitis. Then the phenomena of the case were those 
of a true bilious fever, which generally yielded to the mild 
antiphlogistic regimen, tonics and anti-periodical remedies. 

Though so terrible and mortal in themselves, there were 
extremely few of these cases, if the laudanum and other 
stimulants, when practicable, were boldly, and fearlessly 
used according to the urgency of the spmptoms, but what 
would recover. Convalescence generally, where fever did. 
not follow, was very rapid, and health did not delay. 

ARTICLE II. 

Spasmodic bilious colic. 

This form of disease, as intimated, was a true tetanus of 
most the whole body, the greater part of the organs being 
bound as with iron fetters. In the great perversion of the 
pulmonary, nervous and arterial functions, all remedies in 
the ordinary doses, had completely lost their power, and 
become nugatory. In many cases even, those the most 
energetic, as opium, camphor, given in large and fearful 
quantities, and oft repeated, were very little or not at all per¬ 
ceptible in their effects. The organism, in most cases, was 
but very partially under the dominion of therapeutic agents. 

The treatment was commenced by a large blister to the 


TREATMENT OF THE FEVERS. 


537 


abdomen. Warm, stimulating, antispasmodic lavements 
were ordered; topical blood-letting, blood from the veins in 
quantities much as could be procured or the patient could 
bear. The time, however, for all blood-letting soon passed 
after the commencement of the attack. And though opium 
was without efficacy by itself, when combined with tartar 
emetic, it showed itself a great and powerful remedy. The 
form of administration was twelve grains of the latter shaken 
up in an ounce vial of laudanum, and given fearlessly in 
drachm doses pro re nata. Even in extreme cases, where a 
whole vial would be consumed in a few hours, the medicine 
seldom or never provoked either sleep or vomiting. When 
exhibited in quantities to equal the case, a warm perspira¬ 
tion came out, stood in great drops, and suffused the whole 
body. 

In the numerous cases I have witnessed in a long course 
of practice, often this formula could alone break the strong 
fetters which bound the organs, and prepare the way for the 
successful action of other medicines. And from much ex¬ 
perience in the actual field of practice, I would recommend 
it, or its equivalents to my fellow-practitioners as the surest 
remedy, a remedy most w’orthv of confidence, not only in 
the affection I here treat, but in all the forms of tetanus. 

The stiffness, rigidity, of the organs reduced, the patient 
enjoyed some repose with the sense of great soreness and 
weakness. The reaction generally amounted to fever which 
yielded to mild alvine depletion, and the dietetic regimen. 

I regret my limits do not allow me to spread out this dis¬ 
ease more in detail, treated in a thousand works. It displayed 
some few symptoms not noticed by Pringle, Hilary, Morton, 
Moseley, Jackson—by any of the practitioners of warm pesti¬ 
lential climates. 

In proportion as the sun pours more of its rays, the dis¬ 
eases, the fevers, of my country lift their fiery heads above 
the clouds, and overlook those of other lands. In the furious 
wars they wage on life, the heaviest enginery only of the 
Materia Medica can measure force. The hot partizans of 
the physiological practice may pity, smile at the delusions 

45* 


538 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


of our treatment; but their tortoise-footed medicine would 
be left out of sight, and the work of death done, before any 
thing was accomplished. In the storms they blow, the learned 
sublime therapeutical nothingness of homoeopathy, w'ould fly 
lighter than gossamer before them. And were these partizans 
placed on our medical arena, and were they but to witness the 
single operation of “ incendiary” drastic cathartics, thrown 
into the hot focus of the inflamed stomach, bowels and liver 
of these fevers, they would feel themselves wanting in pity 
and humanity to withhold their use. 

t . ' . i 

ARTICLE III. 

Fever. 

During the early part of the season, in the exacerbation, 
as already, the organism expanded freely and openly its ac¬ 
tion. While the chill lasted, all the means of heat were 
applied, that would not act over to the hot stage. During 
this stage, copious venesections, emetics, purging by calomel 
with its auxiliaries, were resorted to, and urged to the extent, 
if possible, of curbing the violence of reaction. 

While these fevers bore well the most active depletions 
during the exacerbation, a cathartic acting briskly over to 
the apyrexial stage, was apt to prostrate the patient, and en¬ 
danger his life. It was, therefore, a great object to complete 
all these debilitating operations of medicine, before the ap¬ 
proach of this stage. Whatever was the type of the fever, 
depletion was always the only means which could be relied 
on with safety as the first treatment. Early in the disease, 
after due depletion, the bark of Peru, quinine not being yet 
used, with cloves, and a little tine, opii, were lavished much 
as the stomach would bear during the apyrexia of the in- 
termittents and coolest period of the remittents. In this 
way often complete victory was obtained. But, if the fever 
continued in its course, general depletion was pretty early 
abandoned for the use of antimonial diaphoretics ; and the 
antiperiodical remedies again urged in each successive revo- 


TREATMENT OF THE FEVERS. 


539 


lution. By this mode of treatment, there were but very few 
cases which did not promptly cure or rapidly improve. 

It was very observable, if general depletion, even in its 
mildest forms, was continued or carried too near the time, 
when the fever would exhaust itself, or too near the crisis, the 
patient, despite ol all aid, prostrated, and died at the end of 
the course. And, contrarily, if this depletion had not been 
carried to its due extent, he soon fell into the ataxo-adyna- 
mic state; the chances for death then were much increased; 
and if he recovered, convalescence was hard to be established, 
slow in the extreme; and it was long before health came. 

Despite of all depletion, the constant flow of bile causing 
vomiting was troublesome to the practitioner as to the patient. 
By its interference, frequently the bark could not be retained 
with the aid of the laudanum, and the fever was allowed to 
pass on to another paroxysm. 

Seduced by incorrect views, many physicians have thought 
to exhaust and dry up the sources of this bile, by the use of 
calomel, in large doses, from day to day. But experience 
has fully confirmed, that this drug employed in this manner, 
soon hypersthenies the liver, and augments its secretion. Its 
free use in the first paroxysms of these fevers, was beyond 
all doubt of the greatest value, and the action entirely sana¬ 
tory, but should never be pushed to the extent of producing 
hepatic hypersthenia. Calomel given in this way to a healthy 
subject in our climate, promptly causes gastro-hepatic irrita¬ 
tion, or bilious diarrhoea; and if persevered in, soon the bile 
flows dark and vitiated. This appearance of the bile, occa¬ 
sioned by the use of this medicine in fevers and other diseases, 
has stimulated many practitioners, unconscious of the real 
cause, to urge it in larger and more frequent doses, or to set 
seriously about salivation, with the hope and expectation of 
correcting this secretion. And, although success never once 
yet crowned their efforts, the voice of experience has been 
slow to be heard. 

Though the fevers, early in the season, bore the most 
active and free depletions, the only means which could be 
relied on with safety for the first treatment, in those of Au- 



540 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


% 


gust and September, from changes which had occurred, 
this mode of medication could not by far be so universally 
employed, or carried to half the extent. Could the patient 
be treated in the first or second revolution, appropriate de¬ 
pletion was still valuable—every thing to final success—but 
afterwards, usually, it became more or less dangerous. Small 
blood-lettings now would often fearfully syncopate the pa¬ 
tient; and a few brisk dejections by a cathartic, were very 
apt to frightfully prostrate him. Yet it was obvious, patients 
abandoned to themselves or treated without depletion, much 
sooner sunk down into the atcixo-adijnamic state—into the 
stupor, which commonly ended in death. Depletion, there¬ 
fore, in some form, and to some extent, after the disease had 
advanced, was indispensable to safe and successful treatment. 
It prepared the way for the effective action of the antiperi¬ 
odical and tonic remedies. It very commonly prevented 
the patient from becoming typhus, and aroused him when 
he was already so. 

Blood-letting in any way w ? as very doubtful, and was dis¬ 
pensed with altogether in many cases, after the fever had 
made the second complete revolution. The good of cathar¬ 
tics operating mildly, and secured against over action, and 
prostration, was most obvious and striking. It w r as customary 
then to combine opium with them, however mild they might 
be in themselves, and to have brandy and laudanum ready 
to stop their operation, gone far enough, before producing 
collapse, which had terrified so many people, and sudden 
death—collapse and death, which had caused some physi¬ 
cians to entirely abandon their use. In the chances for over 
action, this was a good precaution, and with it, their use 
was perfectly safe. Often I have seen patients, who had 
accidentally sunk under them, recover suddenly from the 
fever as by magic; and often, if not recovering, their cases 
yielded readily to the Peruvian bark, sugared alcoholic 
drinks, and diet. 

These fevers commonly reached the end of their course in 
from four to eighteen days. The greatest majority terminated 
on the ninth day. The paroxysms occurring earlier at each 


TREATMENT OF THE FEVERS. 


541 


revolution, indicated they were increasing in violence and 
malignity; and later, vice versa . A night of apyrexia, spent 
in sleepless dreams and restlessness, forewarned the medical 
attendant of the terribleness of the coming paroxysm. A 
patient passing completely the hour of his chill of the pre¬ 
ceding day, if he did not miss entirely, was pretty certain of 
recovery. About the termination, the patient suddenly be¬ 
coming much better, and animated amid the joy and satisfac¬ 
tion of his friends, with a very slow depressed pulse, was sure 
to expire within thirty hours. This mistaken joy has forced 
me to retire a moment from it, to hide my tears. The tongue 
cleaning suddenly, and very red, was the very worst symp¬ 
tom. The fever exhausting itself, or approaching near its 
termination, the patient was very apt to sink in the midst of 
the exacerbation or at the end of it. Sinking in the midst, 
could he be sustained, it was almost certain he would fall 
unally in the next revolution if it come. But prostrating at 
the end of the hot stage, he might weather a few more 
paroxysms; and the chances for recovery were much better. 

This hot stage near the crisis, or when the patient was 
losing strength rapidly, was a noted epoch, in which death, 
if he came, made his irruption. It was, therefore, always a 
tearful, eventful hour to the practitioner as to the friends of 
the sick—an hour, which tried the valor of his heart, his 
skill and his talents—an hour of suffocating sorrow, of tears 
and wild lamentation. 

A patient thus sinking showed great paleness of the coun¬ 
tenance; and soon a liquid perspiration covered his body, often 
cold and serous. Sinapisms, heat in every practicable man¬ 
ner, were applied externally; hot toddy, strong and in quan¬ 
tities much as he could drink, with the tine, opii, in large 
doses, was given him and repeated, pro re ?icita, until death, 
or the sinking was arrested, and he recovered from it. Then, 
to prevent the next paroxysm, should it come, the antiperi¬ 
odical—the stimulating, invigorating treatment—was perse- 
veringly urged upon him. 

In some instances, the dynamical force of these fevers 
was so great, the functions isolated, all out of equilibrium, 



542 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


that they ran a rapid and steady course to death; and no 
medicine, treatment, could control or produce any very per¬ 
ceptible change in them. If, however, they were early and 
duly depleted, and the antiperiodical and supporting treat¬ 
ment was introduced at the proper time, and kept up, they 
very generally cured, and the mortality was inconsiderable. 
But, in consequence of the different, views and opposite 
modes of practice of physicians, they were allowed to con¬ 
sume much life. Bleeding in the cold stage, recommended 
in Scotland, was tried by some, and caused instant death. 
The free use of opium to prevent this stage, a favorite pre¬ 
scription among some of the English doctors, was also tried 
by others, which produced madness, and effects but little 
better than the bleeding. Some resorted to furious, mercu¬ 
rial salivation, the only remedy before the winding-sheet, in 
every species of dark, energetic disease. The patients often 
expired with great tumefaction of the face, and stenchful 
sphacelation of the fauces. In some instances, the order 
of the morbid phenomena was changed, and tedious re¬ 
coveries took place, with great distress of the chylopoietic 
viscera. But the antiphlogistic regimen prudently con¬ 
ducted, and the treatment afterwards, described above, were 
alone safe and successful in the cure of these fevers. I 
have regretted, I had not known then the experience of Dr. 
Currie, in the effusion of cold water, so comforting, salu¬ 
tary, when admissible, in the burning fevers of our southern 
climate. 


OBSERVATIONS. 

What shall we say ! This treatment so successful would 

j 

now be looked upon as highly incendiary, and condemnable 
by a great portion of the medical learned. To mention no 
more—Tommasini looked upon the liver as the true seat of 
bilious fever; Broussais, upon the stomach. With the one 
it is a hepatitis, which lights up this fever; with the other, 
a gastritis. Will medical posterity coincide or condemn? 
The fever being simply the sympathetic transference of the 


TREATMENT OF THE FEVERS. 


543 


inflammation of internal local organs, the only rational 
treatment is—to avoid introducing upon them all irritating 
stimulating substances, which would but foment this inflam¬ 
mation, and put in operation only the means, which would 
comfort and calm them, or cure their inflammation. 

Must observation and experience, the only true lights 
that guide in the science of nature—observation and experi¬ 
ence in this burning climate, which so nutrifies this fever— 
succumb ? 

Inflammation is only one mode of diseasation of an organ. 
While inflammation is by far the most common mode, are 
we prepared to believe, the living organs so complicated in 
structure and motive powers, are only capable of functional 
aberration in a single w 7 ay ? Do we really know, that all 
fever is only inflammation and its sequences? Have we not 
reasonable doubts? Death can take place without percepti 
ble traces of inflammation. The urine in a fit of hysteria can 
change its color and properties almost instantly—the hair 
become suddenly white in extreme mental suffering. It 
cannot be by inflammation. The thousand anomalous, 
painful sensations w 7 e transitorily feel in all sickness, in the 
glooms of this life—inflammation cannot be their mechan¬ 
ism. The organs must have other modes of disease than 
inflammation, in which bilious fever may participate. 

A thousand times, I have seen quinine, w 7 hich appears to 
expand its greatest action on the cerebellum and subjacent 
organs, suddenly cure a violent bilious fever. Can a medi¬ 
cine acting on the brain causing no lesion, cure at once an 
inflammation of the stomach, which it must do, if inflam¬ 
mation be the cause? If local inflammation of the stomach 
fires up solely the other organs in bilious fever, an artificial 
gastritis ought to produce the same fever. An acrid poi¬ 
son is swallowed in sufficient dose—pain and nausea are 
afterwards felt in the stomach. Soon come on vomiting, 
and a burning, unquenchable thirst; and subsequently, the 
pulse beats strongly, a burning fever rages; the sufferer 
falls into delirium. But this is not a bilious fever; it has 
only some few of the elements; nor can quinine suddenly 



544 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


cure it. Besides inflammation, therefore, other diseased 
modes of organic action figure in the essence of bilious fever. 

Broussais expanded a beautiful light over the hemisphere 
of medicine. Let us do him homage for the good he has 
done. Other lights before him have shone, and live in the 
howling desolation of medical antiquity. 0 mutatum mu- 
tandum! Other lights will yet come, but the facts of dis¬ 
eased nature unveiled by practice, by the effects of medi¬ 
cines, will stand eternal monuments of evidence to the errors, 
as to the truths, they bring. 


CHAPTER V. 

PROGRESS OF DISEASE FROM 1818 to 1826. 

Among the meteorological notices of these years, pre¬ 
served, I see put down—“ nothing very peculiar marks their 
seasons; they have progressed pretty uniformly in the.ordi¬ 
nary course. 7 ’ 

SECTION I. 

BILIOUS FEVER OF 1819. 

This fever, with the other hepatic affections, commenced 
about the same time, presented nearly the same phenomena, 
persevered alike in its course, and terminated similarly to 
that I have just described. The only observable difference 
was, that it had gained a little in general strength, but pro¬ 
bably did not attack a greater number of the population. 

SECTION II. 

BILIOUS FEVER OF 1820. 

During this year, the Yellow Fever already noticed, 
reached its culminating point in Savannah.—It reigned in 



FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


545 


its greatest desolation; struck with terror where it approach¬ 
ed ; and threatened the depopulation of the city. 

Indeed, about this period, as I have already recorded, 
there appears to have existed a meteoric or epidemic con¬ 
dition ot the atmosphere over a large portion of the world. 
This condition we may regard as the general cause of dis¬ 
ease. The peculiar local causes co-operating with it, may 
be looked upon as constituting the diseased affection of one 
place a yellow fever; of another a bilious fever; of a third 
icterus. In other words, meteoration was the universal 
cause, the varieties, in the diseased expression of different 
localities, were its modifications by the special local causes. 
This position is fully sustained in the fact, that, in this year, 
the bilious fever at Milledgeville ran close along by the side 
of the yellow fever of Savannah, often more or less deeply 
shaded with it, and, sometimes, though not so often as in 
the succeeding year, putting on its express symptoms. It 
was evidently only this yellow fever modified, as I think, 
many of the respectable physicians of that day still living, 
will testify their convictions. But elsewhere already I have 
insisted on this view. 

When the medical year had ended, it was easily calcu¬ 
lated, it had borne with more heavy and grievous weight, 
and that mortality from fever was still on the advance. But 
it was not in this, but in the two succeeding years, this 
fever among us took its great and memorable flight. 

SECTION III. 

BILIOUS FEVER OF 1821 - 2 . 

The fevers of these years, the greatest, most mortal the 
country has ever witnessed, commenced and progressed 
nearly in the same types as those of the preceding seasons. 
They began to rage much earlier; commenced or sooner ran 
into the complicated malignant forms; and continued later. 

But in their strength and fierceness, there was a great dif- 


46 



546 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


ference. No sooner were they touched by medicine, than 
they evinced their indomitable power. 

The yellow fever was still progressing in the maritime 
cities and towns at home and abroad. But in Savannah, 
1S21, its violence had much mitigated. So that it was a 
year after this city had received its greatest scourge, before 
the fever of Milledgeville and country situate, rose to its 
acme. 

The cases alluded to, putting on the symptoms of the Sa¬ 
vannah or yellow fever, occurred mostly toward the middle, 
and latter part of the season of these years. In these cases 
very mortal, the patients threw up copiously to the very last 
the black vomit, or a liquid resembling that in which coffee- 
grounds had been profusely mixed. The coffee-ground 
appearance was often that of dark lamellar tlocculi, floating 
thick in the ejected liquid. The skin became of a deep 
saffron color. The yellowness began at the superior extremi¬ 
ties, and progressed downwards by a well-defined transverse 
line, until it covered a part or the whole of the body. A 
few hours only w r ere necessary for the complete coloration. 
You might almost see the yellowness creep along. In the 
great majority of cases, however, these symptoms were ab¬ 
sent. Still the affiliation of the two fevers was sufficient to 
show, there was something common in their cetiologij —the 
meteorized state of the climate. 

In the same way, I may remark here, some years after¬ 
wards, at the time the great cholera was bestriding the world, 
there was a general tendency to diarrhoea, when it ap¬ 
proached nearest us, where it displayed itself in form. This 
tendency was manifest, modifying more or less all the pre¬ 
vailing diseases. And in some instances, the matters defe 
cated precisely resembled those of the real cholera. Additional 
evidence of the extensiveness of morbific meteorations. 

Early after the commencement of its attacks in these two 
years, this fever so fearful, so mortal, aroused public terror, 
and spread a panic where it approached. Even those who 
were in the habit of sinewing their minds against all danger, 
wore in their bosoms annoying apprehensions. It fell on all, 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


547 


but females, and those of the juvenile age were the most ex¬ 
empt. The most strong and robust of the males, and those 
exposed constantly in the open air, stood eminently in the 
way of assault. But above all, the great brandy-drinkers 
were decidedly the most susceptible; and, according to my 
own observations, died promptly after taken, without a single 
exception. Dr. Charles J. Paine, a very respectable prac¬ 
titioner, communicated to me he had observed the same fact 
—‘‘that death for this jovial band manifested a decided 
preference.” The black population, naturally much less 
susceptible than the white, of the attacks of the common 
miasmatidae of the country, took the disease readily, though 
not to near the same extent, and many of them perished. 

1. Contagiousness. By the approach of August, 1821, it 
had been observed, that many, who had waited round the 
bed of their sick friends and relations, were attacked, and 
died a few days afterwards. Soon the conviction and belief 
that the disease was catching, struck terror very generally 
through the community; and especially in the country popu¬ 
lation. So great was the suspicion, and this terror, in some 
instances on approaching the house in the country, I have 
seen the chambers of the sick abandoned, and the duties of 
the dying bed consigned to some octogenarian of the family. 

About this time Prof. Hosack of New York, and other 
physicians, in consequence of yellow fever, had elevated 
themselves on the subject of contagion. I made every obser¬ 
vation I could on our disease. The attacks of those who 
sickened and died suddenly after their attendance on expir¬ 
ing relatives, appeared rather to be due to the anxieties 
which tormented, and the sorrows and fatigues that debili¬ 
tated, than to any thing emanating from the sick. If the 
disease were really contagious, it was very obscurely so. 
Suspicious as every thing appeared to be, Dr. T. B. Gor¬ 
man, of Macon, who laboriously practiced through this fever, 
never saw a solitary case from unequivocal contagion. Our 
physicians, generally, I believe, discountenanced the idea of 
contagiousness. 

2. Character— symptoms. Though these fevers appeared 




548 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


pretty much in the types of those of the former years, yet 
they presented some well-marked peculiarities. There were 
comparatively very few that were strictly either of the con¬ 
tinued or tertian forms. In all their violent attacks, they 
observed the most exact periodicity; and made the complete 
revolution each successive day. Generally, they were 
unequal in intensity on the alternate days, which, in con¬ 
sequence, were styled '‘the good and the bad days of the 
patient. Often, however, they increased in violence from 
the first paroxysm till they were arrested or to death; and 
often, these days could not be distinguished. Without any 
exception, they were all ushered in by a chill, commonly in 
the forenoon. If reaction took place, the exacerbation con¬ 
tinued steadily till about the time for the chill the next day, 
when suddenly the fever stooped, and the chill came on, so 
that there was no apijrexia. The patient, I may say, was 
tossed almost instantly from the burning sultry clime of the 
tropics, into the frost of the poles. If the exacerbation sus¬ 
pended earlier than usual for the coming chill, death was at 
the door; and might always be apprehended. 

In some instances, the patients in perfect health falling 
into the chill at 9 o’clock, expired by 4 of the same day—a 
space only of seven hours. Those who perished in the first 
chill, were literally frozen to death, their forces never react¬ 
ing or offering the least resistance to the first blow, that fell 
upon them. The night of delirium into which they soon 
plunged, ended in the night of death. If they lived through 
the first chill, they were almost certain to reach the third 
day, when they were in the greatest, most imminent danger 
of perishing from the Norwegian cold of this atrocious and 
fearful malady. After this period, most commonly, the 
traces of the chill were but little observable ; death then came 
without the freezing, in the exhaustion, suppression and 
dysnomy of the functions, and they went more calmly and 
gradually down to the final rest. If, therefore, in the attacks 
of former years, as I have said, they expired in the midst or 
at the end of the exacerbation, the great hour of the chill 
was now the great hour of dying. The fever of these years 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


549 


killed by more or less consuming, exhausting the strength, 
but these, by crushing it. 

The chill was always long and terrible. The reaction 
from it, or warm stage, was most commonly imperfect, in¬ 
efficient, hard to be established; and the general exaltation 
of the functions, in great disproportion to their previous 
depression. The bodies of the sufferers did not appear to 
heat regularly, and all over at the same time, or heat phy¬ 
siologically ; but, often pretty much after the manner of 
inorganic substances, when exposed to warmth. The pulse 
was small, and very frequent with great stasis of the capil¬ 
lary circulation. The skin dry and unusually white, im¬ 
parted to the touch the sensation of burning. This was 
especially the case with the head and body. The upper 
and lower extremities were comparatively cool. In some 
instances, however, cool spots would remain on the body 
throughout the exacerbation. Perspiration only came with 
exhaustion and death. Subsultus tendinum actuated the 
voluntary muscles. The tongue dark in the middle was 
furred brown on the sides. A black sordes covered the 
teeth. The secretions were generally suspended. The 
stomach continued all the time insupportably sick, with 
considerable tension of the abdomen. The patient was 
without decubitus. If a vein was opened large enough, the 
blood came thick, and unarterialized. The alvine dejections 
procured by medicine, were black, and often sufficiently 
caustic to excoriate the nates on passing. 

The psychological functions were more or less abnormal. 
The consensus universus the most often yielded to the first 
stroke of these fevers. The living enginery, for the most 
part, was so stunned, choked up, that it could not play up 
to excitement. The organs endowed with capital functions, 
appeared to stand in one another’s way; and the movements 
they put forth, manifested they had mutinied, and were at 
open war among themselves. And, in many instances, it 
was extremely difficult, nay, impossible, for the veterans of 
the art—it would, have been for any man possessed of all 



550 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


that is yet known of medicine—to lay down the correct 
rules of practice; ascertain where to direct the first effort; 
and commence the interference. Knowledge, struck dumb 
before the majesty of such disease, could but be still and 
silent. Prudence directed to look on, and wait for oppor¬ 
tunity ; sinew the heart against the entreaties of the suf¬ 
ferers ; behold the struggle of nature, but not touch.—Pru¬ 
dence, which inspired Sydenham to exclaim, “the best 
prescriptions he ever made, was to prescribe nothing.” But 
the ferocity, rapidity of death, allowed but for a moment this 
contemplative gaze. 

In this havoc of living force, the leeches of the “ rational 
practice” of physiologic Europe, would not have had time 
to bite, nor the gums dissolved, as was the case in the great 
cholera. Had many of the teachers of our famous schools 
been present on this field of medical warfare—teachers, who 
witness the diseases of their own hospitals and cities; look 
out from their closets, and see the diseases of other coun¬ 
tries and climates; fashion them but too closely after the 
likeness of their own ; originate the rules of practice; even 
dare prescribe the medicines; they would have looked upon 
many of their favorite theories as “broken pitchers,” the 
smooth orb of their knowledge, as fractured, and their 
axioms as axiomless. 

Nosology may be useful; its mania is hurtful. The na¬ 
turalist, the crystallograph, may classify the objects of their 
studies. The latter, in our time, has given origin to many 
problems, for the solution of which Mohs has invoked the 
sublimest geometry. In imitation, medical philosophers 
still will attempt the classification of diseases, as if they had 
a definite, fixed form, and enjoyed a permanent existence in 
nature. In their chances for formation, nothing can be more 
uncertain than the number and quality of the symptoms, 
which may group to constitute them. They are mostly 
indigenous; and take into their composition the color of the 
sky, the face of the country—every thing external to them ; 
and vary in the fluctuations of localities, of the world. Ac¬ 
cordingly, the fevers I describe here are not strictly the 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


551 


causes , the synochus , the putrida , ataxica , of any nosograph. 
They are the fevers of Georgia, and, emphatically, the fevers 
of the particular epoch to which they relate; and stand alone 
by themselves in their own originality. 

The truth is, nature originates for the diseases of the 
world only the general laws; and allows each country and 
climate to form their own code according to the great model, 
In each there is always something peculiarly morbific, symp 
tomatic, therapeutic; so that what may be strictly medically 
true in one country, is not precisely so in another. All me¬ 
dical truth is an unit, which admits of many modifications. 
It is not so much in the truth, as it is in making out these 
modifications, our great teachers err. The same truth of 
medicine is true and certain, all over the world, provided 
these modifications enter into its forming elements. And 
the great perfection to which the theory of medicine has 
been brought in modern times, under all the circumstances, 
more justly than any other, challenges admiration and vene¬ 
ration for human genius. 

3. Practice — treatment — history of .—The experience 
of former years cast the die, governed in the treatment of 
these fevers. An historical advertence to the practice of 
these years, therefore, becomes indispensable to faithful 
narration. The errors, as the truths, it unfolds, will help 
to light up the flambeau in the hands of practitioners 
entering on the same field, and on the field of similar cli¬ 
mates. And bright as now shines the light of medicine, 
these same errors and truths will still continue to dart its 
rays deeper and deeper into the dark unfathomable bottom 
of disease. On this account, this narration is placed here, 
without aught of malice to any of my cotemporaries, who 
still live. 

In the management of the fevers of the year 1818, I have 
said, the great lesson of experience was—if the antiphlogistic 
regimen was not promptly and boldly urged in the onset, a 
large number of them would soon grow typhous or adynamic; 
and death obtain an easy and speedy victory. But where this 
regimen had been early urged to appropriate extent, few, very 





552 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


few of them, became typhous; and the patients generally 
recovered, and completely. No irritations of the mucous 
primse vise, nor hypersthenias and enlargements of the liver 
and spleen remained—conditions of future ills, relapses and 
quartan fevers. But this was not the lesson of all: and 
amon£ those with whom this mode of treatment was in bad 
repute, I remember well in these days how common, how 
extremely popular, was the expression—“ died of mortifica¬ 
tion of the brain or of the stomach ”—mortification, the sup¬ 
posed inevitableness of which screened from reproach, and 
did not hinder medical reputation. 

Forlorn! In some of the seasons after the settlement of 
Milledgeville previously to the period of 1818 , the diseases 
had not borne so well heavy and indiscriminate depletions. 
The old physicians, in the scenes through which they had 
passed in these seasons, had been terrified, inspired with 
the greatest horror for this mode of practice; and, in the 
experience and minds of many, death and the lancet , death 
and a solitary alvine evacuation by medicine had become 
synonymous terms , and grown into proverbs. The common 
people knew these proverbs descended from authority. Their 
imagination was excited, and armed against the use of all 
such medicines and measures; so that often, now, deplora¬ 
ble ! when these depletions were absolutely the only reliance 
for safety, and the only hope for recovery, the resort to them 
had become dangerous. Accordingly, long since, Galen said 
with truth, “ the physician practicing against the powers of 
imagination, is disarmed of three-fourths of the prowess of 
his art; and his well-aimed remedies may do harm.” 

For these depletions, which had excited such terrible and 
lasting apprehensions in their minds and which they had 
abandoned in disgust and overthrow, these physicians sup¬ 
posed they had authority—authority, of which they did not 
make the most wise and valuable improvement 

By the boldness of his practice in the epidemic of 1793 , 
and by his eloquence, Dr. Rush had flung round the lancet 
the most fascinating charms; banished from it all fear; and 
quieted the apprehensions of danger. These physicians 


/ 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 553 

returned home from his lecture-room, confident, conscious 
of healing power, boldly unsheathed this invaluable instru¬ 
ment for the profuse flow of Georgia blood. They forgot it 
was the fevers of a southern climate, and not those of their 
master, they were combating. Soon, in its too indiscrimi¬ 
nate and rash employment, they saw the same stroke, 
which opened the tumid vein, opened with it frightfully and 
unexpectedly the patient’s grave. Thrice and again, and 
thrice more, they saw death follow the flowing blood, be¬ 
fore they could suspect error in themselves or their master. 

Mean time, Dr. Hamilton in England elevated himself 
against the “ medicine of expectation,” and wrote his Trea¬ 
tise on Cathartics. He extolled greatly their value, their the¬ 
rapeutic powers, in a host of diseases. The profession gene¬ 
rally became aroused; and, in the American lecture rooms, 
as in other places, these remedies were more talked of; their 
employment more warmly recommended ; and they fell into 
greater use. Purgatives and the lancet had the seal of spe¬ 
cial approbation of the Philadelphia school; and like the 
two Scipios on the field of Roman warfare, became the twin 
thunderbolts of war on tho martial field of American dis- 
ease. Pr. Rush tried fully their value; and the harmonious 
numbers of 10 and 10, jalap and calomel, so popular, so 
superstitiously revered, will still be remembered. 

Free purging as free bleeding, therefore, in our state had 
the authority and teachings of this famous professor. Pre¬ 
viously to the period of 1818, drastic cathartics had been 
lavished, and their use abused. Like the lancet, their rash, 
injudicious administration had proved fatal; and among the 
Rushian practitioners, fallen into disrepute. And during 
1818, and the years immediately subsequent, when, as inti¬ 
mated, these remedies were so much needed, so imperiously 
demanded, remembering the sad loss of valuable lives, the 
frightful, sudden deaths, they had seen them produce for¬ 
merly, they could not be persuaded, under any circum¬ 
stances, to venture a single dose. Nay, in their practice, so 
far from their administration, they exerted all their skill by 
opium and other means to stop, prevent, all spontaneous al- 



554 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


vine evacuations during these fevers; and had they been 
able, would have stayed these organs in chains of adamant. 
Hence, as I have intimated, so many of the fevers of this 
and the following years, through sanguineous engorgement 
of the brain and principal viscera, and costiveness procured 
and kept up, soon grew typhous, and the patients perished, 
or lingered long in distressing, deplorable irritations of the 
lungs and chylopoietic apparatus. And, it was not until 
the country had passed through a large portion of the most 
awful period of marsh-miasmatic fevers it ever saw or will 
see again, that these physicans, so horror-smitten with the 
effects of blood-letting and cathartics, began to lose their fears, 
and prescribe them again. 

Never was terror more completely, more permanently 
fixed. A fact so strange can only be accounted for by ano¬ 
ther fact. They sunk suddenly down from the Rushian 
zenith bespangled with lovely stars, and, apparently certain 
lights, into its nadir. They discarded all theory as vain, 
useless, nugatory ; and determined to hew out, and shape 
out medicine alone from experience. Along the maze it led, 
this experience often contradicted itself; and the light it 
shed, turned into sudden darkness. Its path was crooked 
to their feet; and conducted to nothing fixed and certain. 
The truth it revealed soon took on the form of error; and 
error, in its turn, assumed the shape of pure truth mocking 
their reason. They shut their eyes on the great lights of 
experience ages on ages have shed on medicine, and unknown 
to themselves, practiced by theory secretly formed in their 
own minds in the absence of these lights—theory, the crea¬ 
ture of a moment’s observation in the dark. The theory, 
which vegetates, maturesces in these great lights, they 
hated, despised—theory alone which can open the door that 
looks into the labyrinth of our ills; which can accommo¬ 
date, direct, the therapeutic agency of medicines in actual 
disease; and rationally change this agency in the varying 
phases it assumes. In the stupefaction of their terrors and 
alarms, they were left behind, while the career of disease 
went on. And, when some changes occurred, which most 



FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


555 


urgently demanded free depletion, become phlebotophobes , 
they were afraid now to draw blood, as they were to purge. 

As they did in the fevers of the years already noticed, in 
those I treat here, these physicians relied almost solely for 
treatment on the stimulations of opium and the Peruvian 
bark. The bark, quinine not come into general use, was 
administered in decoction or substance to the amount the 
patient could bear. Laudanum was the form of opium in 
favor. It was given commonly in large doses, at regular 
intervals, per diem , per noctem , through the hot, as the freez¬ 
ing stages. Through all the changes of the disease, through 
weal and through woe, the laudanum was punctiliously and 
faithfully administered the first and the last solemn remedy. 

In cases which allowed the cerebro-spinal system room to 
play, the decided result of this treatment of bark and lauda¬ 
num thus given, if it did not hinder spontaneous recovery, 
was to protract the patient’s life; and prevent commonly all 
alvine evacuation* for a considerable, and often almost in¬ 
credible, period of time. Patients have been known to reach 
the 18th day without this evacuation. The staying of these 
evacuations was regarded as favorable, since they were 
looked upon as the images of death. In some instances, 
these great and powerful stimulations quenched the hot irri¬ 
tation of the organs, equalized their excitement—staved off 
the attack—and the sufferers reached health through some 
after troubles. In the great majority of cases, however, this 
excitement would not equalize ; and the organic edifice sunk 
promptly down, as the burning house which sinks into the 
flames that devour it. In the cases in which life would 
protract under this daily and hourly use of enormous quan¬ 
tities of laudanum, the most often, sooner or later, the excita¬ 
bility exhausted, and the patients become asthenic, expired 
in the wandering dreams of a sleep, from which they could 

* In a letter from a resident physician of Warrenton, he states—“ I have 
made this exact observation; when the bark purges in spite of fate, my pa¬ 
tients are pretty sure to recover.” In answer, he was recommended to 
antecede the use of the bark by a cathartic proprio nomine ; which experi¬ 
ence already had strongly sugges ed to him. 



556 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


not wake. By a slow and gradual motion they passed away; 
and the exact boundary line of their death was not always 
very distinct. The amounts of this medicine patients could 
bear, without producing perpetual sleep, was truly great 
in these fevers. 

Have any looked into the arcanum of medicine with a 
perfect vision! Have any truly a right to be proud, and 
exult! When winged disease comes, it comes in the clouds 
it gathers about it. It pavilions itself in darkness, emblem 
of the Erebic shadows to which it looks—shadows conceived 
by a just and wise antiquity. Can any seize the bow of 
medicine, and direct unerringly its arrows ! Like the facts 
pathological anatomy reveals, the errors of practice in homi¬ 
cidal diseases should be eternally preserved for the benefit of 
medical mankind, and the diseasable species. It is for this 
benefit solely, I have attempted to rescue here these errors 
from oblivion. They may help to guide, where the sun 
with his fire rains down pestilence. As lonely light-houses 
radiating a negative light, they may point him his course 
who battles on the tempestuous seas of meridional disease. 

But besides the practitioners of this costive, incendiary 
treatment, there were others, who pursued a method of ma¬ 
nagement in many respects very opposite. These relied 
much on the efforts which could be made, and the remedies 
applied, at the different stages of the disease. Their great 
objects were, if possible, to mitigate the horrors of the chill, 
shorten its duration, secure, establish reaction, and check it 
going too far—in a word, to sustain the equilibrium of the 
functions, far as practicable, in the revolutions of the fever. 

Accordingly, the patient’s body was covered over more or 
less largely as the symptoms demanded with strong mustard 
plasters; and hot bricks placed round it, rolled up in woolen 
cloths dipped in brandy. The bed-clothes were drawn tight. 
These applications were made a short time before the chill, 
so as to be in full operation when the patient fell into it. In 
some instances the heat had to be pushed to near scalding 
before any signs of reaction occurred. Warm red pepper 
tea was freely administered during the chill. 




i 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


557 

Most commonly these remedies sufficed for the cold stage. 
But if the patient continued to sink, hot brandy toddy, 
with the tinctures of opium and camphor, were freely admi¬ 
nistered, pro rt nata , until the warm stage was established. 
This stage come fully on, a large dose of calomel was given, 
and worked pretty promptly off with the pulvis pu/rgans 
The operation was closely watched; and if it threatened 
prostration, it was stopped by opium or alcoholic drinks. If 
the pulse and the heat rose to warrant it, the body was 
sponged with tepid vinegar and wateror effusions of cold 
water were kept up, and the patient placed in an airy situa¬ 
tion, was fanned constantly to aid the cooling by evapora¬ 
tion. The purging over, the patient took freely cold gum 
water, lemonade, subacid and calming drinks. Pretty early 
a large blister was applied over the epigastrium , which 
greatly comforted the tormenting sickness of the stomach, 
that constantly annoyed; and enabled it to retain the admi¬ 
nistrating remedies. 

Blood-letting in any form was generally very doubtful 
and unsafe; and was admissible in the fewest number of 
cases. When, however, it could be trusted, or resorted to, 
it was of the greatest utility. The purging off from th vprimce 
vice the ingesta, the stimulating, acrimonious contents, and 
the cold effusions afterwards, abated the violence, and kept 
in pretty good subjection the febrile symptoms. 

The chill coming on again, the same means were employed, 
but in the pyrexia, commonly, the purging was not repeated. 
The softening, cooling drinks, and the tepid or cold effusions 
w r ere alone prescribed and relied on. 

Under this management, the most often, the violence of 
these fevers was pretty early subdued, and sometimes inter¬ 
missions more or less complete were obtained, so as to admit 
the use of the anti-periodical remedies. Now was a precious 
moment, a moment of power and triumph to the practitioner, 
if he seized upon it. But letting it slip, the next step, he 
might be in the midst of death, and the case hopelessly gone 
out of his hands. The impetuosity of the fever thus curbed, 

* Three parts of cream of tartar, rubbed up with one of jalap. 


47 



558 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


or intermissions procured, the Peruvian bark in substance 
with cloves, was instantly given in drachm doses each hour, 
with ten drops of laudanum ; and persevered in long as the 
patient could bear, or until a sufficient quantity had been 
taken. The free use of the decoction of the serp. virginiana 
was also commonly prescribed at the same time. Without 
the laudanum, it was often, nay, almost in every case, im¬ 
possible for enough of the bark to be retained to arrest the 
periodical movement, and seize the cure. If the fever re¬ 
laxed or gave way only a short interval before the expected 
cold stage, then the bark was swallowed in half ounce or 
ounce doses, and enough taken at once with a proportional 
quantity of laudanum, when the patient with his friends 
around him, waited with solicitude the coming chill. Could 
he but retain the bark, he was certain to brush by the icicles 
of this fever, and not feel the cold. Some little excitement 
followed, when the joyous prospect of recovery was presented 
fully before him. Again and again I have known patients 
to retain the bark but ninety minutes, and then instantly 
pass safely and calmly over the chill, this cold gulf of death, 
and reach health in a short time. But alas ! throwing it up 
earlier, or before the impression could be made, they plunged; 
and the vital warmth, as if affrighted at such intense cold, 
escaped instantly from them, and forever. Often I have 
seen the bark, retained only thirty minutes, half way dis¬ 
lodge this fever, and cases certainly mortal, become easy of 
cure. 

Had antiquity known this bark, they would have erected 
it into a goddess; it would have had a Linus or a Meonides 
to send it down in ceaseless song; and we would read of its 
altars and worship nowin fair and beautiful fable. To the 
pharmaceutic chemistry, which brought forth quinine from 
this bark, ought to be raised up a pillar for glory ; and for 
the connoissance of gratitude of future mankind. For, if 
we had had quinine then, we could have snatched from the 
frozen grasp of this pestilential, epidemic fever, those who 
perished, because their stomachs were too weak to retain 
the bark. 


FEVER OF THE YEARS 1821 - 2 . 


559 


But in some instances, I have said, these fevers were 
immedicable from the commencement; and some died in 
the first chill even before aid could be had; and some, with 
aid. In all their violent attacks, they robbed at once, to a 
greater or less extent, the organism of its dynamical proper¬ 
ties. Once falling upon it, its motions become more or less 
feeble and sluggish; and it did not play up well to the 
rudder of medicine. The tendency of all depletions was to 
easily subdue these motions; hence the great caution in their 
use, and the limited extent to which they could be safely 
carried. Moderate purging, however, in all cases, was uni¬ 
versally borne kindly in the first exacerbations well esta¬ 
blished, but required to be closely watched, and could seldom 
be repeated afterwards. Evacuations thus procured and 
guarded, often invigorated much functional activity; were 
always extremely comforting to the patient; gave energy 
and effect, nay, certainty, to the future activity of the bark 
in arresting the paroxysms. Without their previous use, I 
always found the bark uncertain in the good expected of it; 
and its proper action could not be relied on. 

The patient passing through the third paroxysm, I have 
also said, was the most often in but little danger of the freez¬ 
ing death. The fever then continued most all the time in a 
low form. But the hours at which the chill had previously 
come, were still fearful and disastrous epochs. In place of 
the chill, these were now the hours of mortal collapse, cold 
serous sweats, and death. 

A patient thus collapsing, the body was kept dry by con¬ 
stantly wiping off the perspiration. Sinapisms and artificial 
warmth were applied. Warm toddy of Cog. brandy, with 
laudanum in large doses, was given adlibitum; and the times 
of administration shortened or lengthened, as the symptoms 
required, until the case was reached or lost. In the opposite 
scale of these stimulating forces, death bore with an exceed¬ 
ingly heavy weight. If the practitioner feared for, or be¬ 
came alarmed at, the great quantities of these medicines he 
had given, and did not stand firm, death instantly snatched 
his victim from him. This perilous combat, with greater 


560 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


or less paroxysmal intensity, sometimes lasted for three days; 
but most often, the fierceness of the struggle was over in 
twelve hours or less. 

The greatest amount of the brandy I ever saw absolutely 
necessitated for this last period, was three pints; and of the 
laudanum, strong as could be made, one ounce and a quarter; 
though Dr. Lucas, of Virginia, in Chapman’s Journal of 
about this time, speaks of much more enormous stimulations 
in a similar fever. 

A few moments after the collapse, the patient fell into a 
deep and heavy slumber. If the stimulants were not pushed 
upon him to rouse him up, and make him wakeful, sooner 
or later, he was sure to expire in the sleep. The hopefulness 
and unhopefulness of these cases were pretty much in the 
ratios of the amounts of the brandy and laudanum which 
would produce wakefulness. If enough could be given to . 
break this slumber, and keep the patient out of it, only a 
few hours, generally he soon rose above its power, and his 
recovery was almost certain. I am confident a great num¬ 
ber perished for the want of firmness in the practitioners— 
perished, when a small quantity more withheld, of the brandy 
and fearful laudanum briskly given, would have broke the 
sleep, and the hold of death. But such firmness as was 
here required finds but little room in human bosoms. 

Patients rising up out of the collapse were very seldom or 
never afterwards harassed with fever. They lay calm and 
peaceful with a sense of great weakness. The joy of reco¬ 
very before them was visible. Their cases then yielded 
readily to the tonic and dietetic regimen. Among the tonics, 
it was generally considered safe to advise the use of the 
Peruv. bark in some form. 

I believe the universal fatality of this epidemic fever 
among the habitual brandy drinkers, was greatly due to the 
impossibility of stimulating them. 

The fevers of the two years, I treat here, varied but little ; 
that of 1821 excelled perhaps in the mortality. 

4. General observations. —Cold patients would not stimu¬ 
late. The action of stimulants given in fearful quantities, 


PROGRESS OF DISEASE FROM THE YEAR 1822 TO 1826. 561 

in such a situation, did not appear to extend beyond the 
containing 1 stomach. The capillary motion of the blood 
required to be excited first, in order to obtain their diffusible 
effects. Then a much less quantity sufficed to reach the 
case. It was, therefore, of the first importance in the chill 
as in the collapse to keep up the external, artificial heat, 
and the action of the sinapisms alive. For the want of pro¬ 
perly appreciating this sort of excitement, some sunk finally, 
and perished, whom the stimulation by the stomach would 
have raised up again and sustained. 

The tendeney of all these fevers, with or without treat¬ 
ment, was to terminate in the heavy slumber I have men¬ 
tioned. The collapse in the chill, or toward the end of their 
course, was the hour of the sleep. No wild tumult of grief, no 
noise or agitation of their persons, could often arouse patients 
from it. In the cold rivers of perspiration they shed, they 
slept on calmly with a slow and languid pulse. After hav¬ 
ing thus slept for thirty hours in the absence of assistance, 
again and again, I have seen them wake up suddenly in 
their right mind, and continue so, after the brandy and 
laudanum had been briskly administered, gradatim, to a 
pint of the former, and half ounce of the latter. In the 
revolution only of thirty hours more, I have seen also, a very 
small quantity of this brandy, or a few drops of this lauda¬ 
num, over-excite them. 


SECTION IV. 

PROGRESS OF DISEASE FROM THE YEAR 1822 TO 1826. -SYNOPTICAL 

VIEW. 

This dreadful fever, after 1822, began gradually to de¬ 
cline. It degenerated completely into the common bilious 
fever of the country by 1826, a case occurring now and then 
sporadically with the malignant symptoms ol the former 
years. 

According, however, to the observations of Dr. John G. 
Slappy, of Twiggs county, lower down the country, wheie 

47* 




562 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT 


the soil rests on the thelasso-zootic limestones, its violence 
continued with pretty equal intensity until 1824. This 
physician, who has evinced much solicitude for the im¬ 
provement of southern medicine, thinks a considerably 
greater number of cases commenced here in the ataxo-ady- 
namic form than they did up in the higher regions of the 
state. 

In some of the sporadic cases, occurred a very curious 
and singular phenomenon. The bile thrown up was a deep 
indigo blue, or a blue paler, very clear and beautiful. I have 
seen it cast up the color of gold, and exposed a few minutes 
to the air, turn suddenly to the one or other of these elegant 
transparent blues. I know not the molecular change. The 
blood drawn was very dark and inspissated, but flowing, it 
quickly changed and resembled the arterial. Sometimes it 
was whitish from the over proportion of coagulable lymph, 
but nothing like the milk-white blood of some of the old 
writers. 

In this decline of the epidemic, some of the fevers assumed 
the character of a very peculiar irritation. They could nei¬ 
ther be bled nor purged off. Toward the middle and termi¬ 
nation, the more these depletions were reasonably urged, 
the higher and more persevering they became. The anti¬ 
phlogistic regimen pressed until the functions were a little 

affected, and then a single full dose of opium* defevered, 

• ✓ ^ 

* In treating of the costive, stimulating practice, I have said above—the 
merciless attacks of the fevers of 1821-2, were sometimes staved off sud¬ 
denly by pure, enormous stimulations. The powers of opium operating freely 
eccentrically in crushing great irritations are truly wonderful. I will subjoin 
an example.—Saw the patient at 9 A. M., in the exacerbation of the second 
paroxysm of fever. He was in the flower of age ; of robust constitution, and 
habitual, plethory health. Pulse firm, strong, and full; great functional 
activity; skin very hot, eyes red, fierce, wild, staring ; lusty jactitation ; de¬ 
lirium coming on—Ordered 18 ounces of blood, and left a cathartic potation 
with an ounce vial of laudanum, 20 drops to be given in case of over action. 
The nurse instantly got drunk; and gave him the whole vial in a glass of 
his toddy, in place of the cathartic. 

Saw him again at 2 P. M. He was in a most profuse perspiration—had 
just woke up from his delirium ; looked placid and comfortable ; was in his 


OBSERVATIONS, MEDICAL LITERATURE, AND CONCLUSION. 563 

cured them at once. Besides what I repeatedly saw, Dr. 
S. Boykin, a minute observer, and excellent physician, com¬ 
municated to me he had met and cured in this manner, a 
number of such cases. 

Many of the fevers which came before practitioners now, 
were hard to undo, and set the patient right again. But 
their mortality was greatly diminished; and after the year 
1826, health reigned generally and long over the country. 

Could a long series of exact observations on the phenomena 
of disease of all similar and dissimilar climates, be made, 
these observations, compared from time to time, would mu¬ 
tually illuminate one another; the great chart of the diseases 
of the world, at last, might be drawn out; and a medical geo¬ 
graphy formed, which would tend rapidly to the perfection 
of the science. 


CHAPTER VI. 

SUMMARY OBSERVATIONS, MEDICAL LITERATURE, AND CONCLUSION. 

These atrocious fevers, of which I have now rapidly de¬ 
scribed the course, the history and treatment, making their 
assault, soon as we already know, wasted and completely de¬ 
stroyed the dynamical forces of the living organism. At¬ 
tacking in their greatest fury and strength, they froze the 
patient to death in a few short hours. In such cases, the 
cold of the ague gradually increased from the first moment. 
Soon supervened the deep sleep, from which it was always 
difficult, and often impossible to arouse the sufferer. With 

right mind ; said “ he felt much refreshed ; was perfectly welland ten¬ 
dered most kindly his thanks for deliverance. 

He recovered from that moment; and, in a few days, reached his wonted 
health. In such an accident, nothing but certain death could have been 
reasonably apprehended ; but he was saved in the eccentric action of the 
medicine. 




564 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


this sleep, came on the sonorous, snorting respiration, the cold 
viscid perspiration and death. The sleep grew deeper and 
deeper, the patient becoming less and less excitable from it 
until the exit. Often the hour of dissolution could be fore¬ 
told from its growing intensity. In all cases from the first 
moment, the patient passed rapidly away from under the 
power of all medicine; and what could be done for his relief 
required to be done quickly. I have often regretted I had 
not applied the thermometer to the body of these patients to 
ascertain how far the cold of these agues, so intense to the 
touch, fell below the natural standard of the living heat. 

In the forms less violent, when these fevers did not kill by 
the first blow they struck, and would pass on in successive 
paroxysms, the general loss of physical strength sustained 
by the patient, was very manifest. After a single revolution, 
in the apyrexia, the voice of the most robust was much sub¬ 
dued ; the pulse less full and more frequent; complete loss 
of appetite ; inaptitude to all motion from a sense of general 
weakness; respiration easy, but a little hurried ; some nau¬ 
sea of the stomach. From the first, the living substance 
wasted rapidly; and after a few turns of the disease, the 
ravages of general atrophy w T ere very manifest and striking 
to the beholder. It was long after recovery before embon¬ 
point w’as regained. 

In some fevers of considerable energy, which authors 
describe, the body of the patients appears to lose substance 
very slowly ; but these, as I may say, exhausted and drank 
it up at ouce. They modified promptly the action of the 
dynamical forces, which preside over the molecular forma¬ 
tion and decomposition of the living parts. They subverted 
the plastic attraction, which renews the substance of these 
parts from the torrent of the circulation, wdiile they accele¬ 
rated the movement of the divellent affinity, which undoes or 
decomposes them. These two attractions appear to be the 
same, and essential to the being of all the living, as the two 
attractions of opposite tendencies are to that of all the inor¬ 
ganic bodies of nature. And, since these latter are mere phe¬ 
nomena of the equipolence of these two molecular attractions 


OBSERVATIONS, MEDICAL LITERATURE, AND CONCLUSION. 565 

\ 

of opposite tendencies, exist only in this equipolence, so the 
former or living bodies are phenomena of the equipolence of 
the two opposite forces of organic formation and decompo¬ 
sition. They exist, and can only exist in this equipoise. 
These fevers struck at the equipolence of these two great 
vital forces—struck, consequently, at the fountain whence 
life derives all its dynamical strength. Hence their great 
power to destroy. And when the star which shines on medi¬ 
cine shall have reached a greater elevation in the firmament 
of letters, we may think that future medical philosophers 
will look on the killing power of all diseases, as solely modi¬ 
fied by their capacity to affect the equilibrium of these two 
great opposite forces which preside over the chemifactions 
of living bodies. Their measure of strength to jostle this 
equilibrium will be the measure of severity and death they 
carry with them. 

In some instances, death took place in these fevers before 
the living power was completely exhausted. In such cases, 
by literally covering the body with strong, warm, mustard 
plasters, application of external heat, and hot brandy toddy 
and laudanum freely administered, again and again, I have 
seen the sufferers snatched from death near the last sigh. 
But many cases would not so stimulate, and death coming 
was sure of his victim. In order to successful stimulation, 
the importance, the great value of keeping up the external, 
artificial heat, and of constantly wiping off the viscid per¬ 
spiration as it flows, preserving the body dry, have been 
already sufficiently urged. It was very necessary that the 
practitioner watched closely these heavy stimulations. Most 
commonly, from 24 to 36 hours and sometimes less, the pa¬ 
tient passed completely out from under the exhaustion, when 
a small portion of these stimuli would over-excite him; and 
when the same doses he had just previously been taking, 
would promptly destroy him recovering, and getting out of 
all danger. In some cases, these exhaustions appeared to 
be hastened on by the persevering and tormenting pains 
which seized on the back and lower extremities in the onset 



566 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


of the paroxysms. The pains were those of breaking the 
back and legs, of which constant cry was made. 

We have seen, that the fevers which visited the country 
from the settlement of Milledgeville, about the commence¬ 
ment of the actual century, to the year 1826 , passed through 
many changes, and assumed many new and peculiar symp¬ 
toms. At first, they bore exceedingly heavy on children 
and those of the juvenile age. But from the years 1810 to 
1818 , all ages and conditions were alike liable to their assaults. 
During this period, these inflammatory, bilious fevers did 
not bear depletions so well. A single copious blood-letting, 
or a few alvine dejections procured by medicine, sometimes 
caused prostration, and brought on the most alarming symp¬ 
toms. The resort to these remedies demanded some caution 
and care in the practitioner. But after 1818 to the year 1826 , 
these fevers perfectly remodeled, arid armed with the most 
terrific power of death, bore kindly again these depletions. 
Nay, without their preliminary use, there could be but very 
little or no hope of recovery from any other treatment. 

The fevers, which raged previously to the year 1818, as 
above, were the common inflammatory, bilious fevers of the 
country. But those which raged epidemically from this 
time until 1826, were shaped by causes peculiar to the coun¬ 
try then operative—shaped a true pestilence. The autopsy 
of those who fell victims, showed much inflammation of the 
gastro-intestinal mucous surfaces; and often the ventricles 
of the brain were more or less distended by a yellowish, 
watery secretion. 

External, physical causes must guide in the career and 
revolutions of fevers. The constantly changing formsand 
symptoms must be due to the operation of such causes. 
What was peculiar to the year 1818, in which this great 
and pestilential scourge commenced, was the long drought 
we noticed. But a drought equally great and persevering 
in the same country marked the year 1839, in which there 
was the greatest exemption from disease; and the most per¬ 
fect health everywhere prevailed. A short time anterior, 
however, to the period of 1818, there were some occur- 


OBSERVATIONS, MEDICAL LITERATURE, AND CONCLUSION. 567 

rences entirely peculiar. The summer months throughout 
of IS15-16 were decidedly the coldest the country has ever 
witnessed before or since. The newspapers of the day 
noticed unusual colds approaching to frost, for almost every 
summer month of these two years. 

Could these colds have exerted any influence, operated 
any way in changing the tenor of disease, and in setting on 
foot the murderous epidemic, w T hich slaughtered so much 
in the subsequent years? Do great and small diseases have 
a rotatory motion, and do they return w 7 ith their causes in 
the sequel of years? In the actual state of science, these 
questions do not admit of response, but we may suppose, in 
the cumulative observations of ages, in the brighter light 
medicine will shed, the truth will be approached. 

These observations have only commenced in the country 
for w r hich I write. So far, however, as they have gone, 
they lean to the rotatory motion of disease. It was observ¬ 
able, the fevers of the year 1836, and afterwards, resembled 
very exactly those of 1815-16. The scarlatina, w 7 hich 
raged with great malignity over Georgia, and most of the 
Southern States, in the years 1832—3, appeared among us 
again epidemically, but somewhat tinged with the shades of 
the prevailing diseases in the actual year, 1844. But where 
so much doubt and uncertainty exist, we can conclude no¬ 
thing positively from accidental coincidences like these. 

If diseases, the great pestilences, which occasionally de¬ 
vastate the world, have a movement of rotation, their causes 
must progress forward in the same order. The great masses 
of matter which move in space, have their cycles, but the 
molecular fluctuations of bodies, which must exert a great 
and direct bearing on the health and diseases of countries, 
of the world, appear but very limitedly, if at all, to be sub¬ 
jected to such order of motion. This subject of the succes¬ 
sion and return of diseases, is very obscure. Their relations, 
however, to external physical agency, which must guide in 
their career, and fashion the symptoms, are not altogether 
beyond the power of enterprizing research. Careful obser¬ 
vations on the temperatures of years; on the hygrometrical 




568 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 


vicissitudes of the atmosphere; on the perfect or imperfect 
ripening of grain and the substances on which we subsist; 
and on the changes of countries by the action of man, ex¬ 
tended through a long series of years, would be valuable 
toward such research. From time to time the diseased 
changes might be compared with the changes of these ex¬ 
ternal modifiers, and the coincidences, the bearings of the 
one on the other at last, might be detected or reduced to a 
narrow compass. Such a discovery, could it be made, 
would give a great flight to hygiene, and the whole science 
of medicine. Practitioners would then know beforehand 
the appropriate treatment—what fevers would bear deple¬ 
tions, stimulations, and what would not; and their judgments 
and prescriptions everywhere would harmonize to the eternal 
honor of the healing art. 

The field of disease over which we have just hastily 
glanced, affords the greatest facilities for observation. But 
in the heavy duties and the fatigues our physicians undergo, 
these facilities, as too much everywhere, are very imper¬ 
fectly put to account, and medicine, without the due im¬ 
provement, descends into the hands of posterity. So much 
is this so, that the author, in writing these imperfect pages, 
often in the midst of doubt, trouble and uncertainty, had no 
written records to consult or console. Dr. Rush has said, 
that a physician practising through a long life without writ¬ 
ten notices of the cases he has treated, toward the end of his 
course loses the most of his experience. In this way much 
valuable experience is lost, which preserved, would become 
a flambeau in the hands of medical successors combating old 
diseases or new ones when they come. Consequently, the 
registering of the symptoms, and all the peculiarities moral 
and physical attendant on disease, is indispensable to pro¬ 
gressive improvement. And, too, what is a great detriment, 
the high dialect, in which nature utters human ills, is not 
in the power of all. She has not been lavish of the ability 
of seizing the diseased expressions, and of producing the true 
picture. Hence the black volume of false facts and false 
experience, which fills the world; and with brilliant names, 


OBSERVATIONS, MEDICAL LITERATURE, AND CONCLUSION. 569 

constantly passes to becloud the medical horizon of posterity. 
When Brown and Broussais wrote, there appeared to be 
light enough to cure disease. But even in these great men, 
time has shown, that all is not light which looks like light; 
and more of the rays of the same precious light they sought' 
still continues a pressing want. The truth of medicine is 
truly yielded slowly. In the presence of the majesty of dis¬ 
ease, how often have I felt the urgent necessity of this truth 
—this gray-haired truth—which, like the granite, the ada¬ 
mant of the world, remains all ages the same; and will never 
disappoint or deceive! How often the fast falling tears of 
innocence and beauty, of love and tenderness—the sighings, 
sobbings, the suffocations, heart-breakings about the sick-bed, 
have sorrowfully forced a sense of its want upon me! And 
how invaluable was every ray of this truth which could be 
collected in the treatment of the furious fevers consigned in 
these pages! How terrible the therapeutic gloom which 
canopies the languishing bed-chamber, where conquerable 
death has skulked, and waits for his prey! To seize his 
arrow from him, and drive him hence; this is a work to do; 
higher in fame, higher in glory, than any name ever de¬ 
served, come from the loins of Mars! 

In my long course of practice, I have never seen in 
Georgia, a true and genuine case of typhus fever, such as 
Armstrong and the European practitioners describe. Oc¬ 
casionally, w r e have fevers of a low dynamical power, of 
which, from the commencement, the medullary organ is the 
principal laboring seat. Such were those which, some years 
since, broke out at the Oglethorpe University; and which 
have appeared, though rarely, at different times and in 
different places. But their collective symptoms do not 
quadrate with those of authors. Our bilious fevers unduly 
depleted in the onset, or depleted too much after they have 
progressed, and sometimes under any circumstances, are very 
apt, in some seasons, to fall into the typhous state, and pass 
for typhus. But this state only indicates the exhaustion 
of the nervous organ, which played a heavy part in the pre¬ 
vious exacerbations; and which, losing its dynamical power, 
48 


570 


MEDICAL ACCOUNT. 




has sunk down into partial inaction. Besides bilious fevers, 
scarlatina, pleuritis, and other maladies capable of greatly 
exciting the functions, occasionally exhibit these same ty¬ 
phous or typhoid symptoms, showing there is nothing pecu¬ 
liar in the cause, and confirming the view here given. 

Cases of stone in the bladder are of extremely rare occur¬ 
rence. I think very few ever necessitate an operation for 
relief. Phthisis pulmonalis can hardly be said to have a 
true existence. The organic conformation to it must be 
great for it to take hold. It s fevers in the various forms, 
among which the exanthemata are many, that principally 
vex and urge untimely exit. 

Than elsewhere, because of the greater complicatedness 
and impetuosity of diseases in our southern states, where the 
vigor of my days has been passed in active duty, it is much 
more difficult to wield aright the armory of medicine. Re¬ 
cently here, the w r ant of more precise and ample truth, on 
which to found medical practice, has been more lively felt; 
and means to this end, accordingly, have been put into ope¬ 
ration. Through the enterprize of the late Professor An¬ 
thony, who manifested great zeal, and of some other medical 
gentlemen of Augusta, a respectable medical quarterly was 
got on foot; and succeeded w r ell for awhile. But since the 
lamented death of the professor, it has been suspended. The 
spirit of active inquiry is going on. The medical school at 
Augusta is extending its influence. The experience, the 
researches, the investigations—the hard earnings of time— 
will be put together. The medicine of Georgia, of the south, 
has yet to take its great flight. The benighted diseases of 
these countries will show in this light. 


THE END. 
























































































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